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SADDLE AND CAMP
IN THE ROCKIES

An Expert's Picture of Game Conditions
in the Heart of our Hunting Country

BY

DILLON WALLACE

AUTHOR OP

"THE LURE OF THE LABRADOR WILD," " THE LONG LABRADOR TRAIL,"
" BEYOND THE MEXICAN SIERRAS," ETC.

ILLUSTRATED WITH PHOTOGRAPHS

NEW YORK

OUTING PUBLISHING COMPANY

MCMXI

F
131

Wl?

Copyright, 191 1, by
OUTING PUBLISHING COMPANY

Entered at Stationers' Hall, London, England
All rights reserved

£SITY OF T0V>0V

8 1) 6 0 S

TO THE MEMORY

OF

MY FATHER AND MY MOTHER

INTRODUCTION

FOR several years it had been my desire
to see intimately some of the wilder sec-
tions of the Rocky Mountain region,
and personally observe the big game ranges and
game conditions. In the spring of 1910 I was
so fortunate as to be in position to complete ar-
rangements for the trip, which I planned to
make with saddle and pack animals, starting
in Arizona and proceeding northward across
intervening States into Montana, a total dis-
tance of nearly two thousand miles. Not only
would the journey take me through some of
the best big game country in the United States,
but it promised unusual interest in many other
ways. It would carry me into what we may
call the remnant of our frontier, over big cattle
ranges, through Apache, Navajo, Hopi, and
Paiute Indian country, across desert reaches,
and would give me a view of many of the nat-
ural wonders in which our West i$ so rich.

viii INTRODUCTION

As suggested, however, the chief object of
this journey was to study at first hand the big
game conditions; to estimate as nearly as pos-
sible the amount of game still remaining in the
regions traversed; to learn something of the
adequacy, in practical operation, of present
game laws to protect game and work for its in-
crease; to observe the methods in various sec-
tions of enforcing and administering the game
laws; and to observe the methods in vogue of
protecting game inhabiting public lands and
forest reserves, including those unsettled areas
under Federal control where some species of
game animals have been practically extermi-
nated.

As a natural result of indiscriminate slaugh-
ter, game animals in the United States have
so diminished in numbers that the preserva-
tion of the few remaining is to-day a serious
problem. This diminution, indeed, has already
gone so far that the early extinction of some
species is threatened. It was to be expected
that civilization would displace the wild game
in agricultural and populated regions, for wheat
fields and buffalo herds cannot co-exist; ante-
lope and elk cannot feed in city streets.

But destruction has gone beyond the con-
fines of settled areas. It has extended, and in

INTRODUCTION ix

some instances very completely, to the still un-
inhabited wilderness. The wild creatures have
failed to find refuge even in the most remote
mountain fastness or arid desert. In the Rocky
Mountain region, on the great Colorado Pla-
teau, and, in fact, throughout the whole United
States, are wilderness areas, some of them of
vast extent, which are neither adapted to agri-
culture, nor capable of any development, so
far as we know at present, but which would
support great numbers of valuable so-called
game animals. The most inaccessible and
rugged mountains are the natural habitat, for
instance, of mountain sheep. Likewise, there
are unpeopled regions adapted to antelope, elk,
moose, or other valuable species, as well as
many of the fur-bearing animals.

Were these animals permitted to propagate in
sufficient numbers in those sections unavailable
for settlement or development, they would un-
doubtedly prove a valuable national resource.
But it was only in recent years that our Fed-
eral and some of our State governments took
cognizance of the fact that wild animals were
of value and might well be reckoned among
our national resources. In an age and country
where the accumulation of wealth is the first
consideration of the people, anything that ap-

x INTRODUCTION

peals to legislators must possess immediate in-
trinsic or money value, and the value must
be patent and easily seen. So long, therefore,
as legislators insisted that conservation was a
theory of sentimentalists, and declined to see
the practical side of it, nothing under the wide
dome of heaven could induce them to offer
legal protection to either forests or game ani-
mals, and this shortsightedness has directly
led to profligate waste.

It was a long and tedious undertaking to
educate our lawmakers to appreciate the fact
that deer, elk, mountain sheep, and other game
animals really are of intrinsic value and might
prove of decided profit to the State. Hardly
yet have the legislators of many of our States
come to a full realization of the fact that wild
tracts of country not capable of agricultural
development, or not at present so utilized, may
support game animals that will be of the same
relative value to the State as cattle are to the
individual ranchman.

In consequence of this lack of legislative in-
terest, in spite of the long educational campaign
in game protection, our game laws are still in
the crude formative or partially developed
stage, and game protection is largely a matter
of political juggling and political favor; and

INTRODUCTION xi

so it will be until the State departments estab-
lished for the supervision of game are divorced
from politics, and commissioners and wardens
are appointed because special training, rather
than political preferment, qualifies them.

Winter after winter, for many years, persis-
tent reports have come out of the Jackson's
Hole country in Wyoming of an appalling mor-
tality among the elk of that region, due to star-
vation, and by a visit to Jackson's Hole I hoped
to learn something of the true extent of the
mortality.

In the spring of 1910 I received a personal
report that great numbers of elk had also
starved to death during the previous winter in
the National Forest Reserves in Montana, just
north of and adjoining the Yellowstone Na-
tional Park. These were animals, it was said,
belonging to herds reared in the Park in sum-
mer, but which naturally resort in winter to
the lower altitudes of the forest reserves, when
snow becomes too deep in the Park for them
to forage a living there.

These reports, it seemed to me, should be
investigated, and I proposed to visit the region
in question with that in view. Every individual
in the United States has a personal interest in
the animals inhabiting our national parks, and

xii INTRODUCTION

if reasonable precaution is not taken for their
maintenance and care, and if they are permit-
ted to starve by wholesale, the fact should be
known If every citizen has an interest in our
public parks and the animals which they con-
tain, the responsibility also falls upon him to
see 'that his interest is properly looked after.
He should turn such influence as he may pos-
sess in this direction. He should do his utmost
to compel those in authority to offer the fullest
possible protection in winter to the dumb crea-
tures which we rear and protect in summer.

It is difficult for us of the East to realize
the geographical extent of our West. We are
too self-centered. Our average Easterner is
a provincial of the most pronounced type. It
is not easy, for example, for the typical New
York City man to understand that New York
City is not the United States, but is simply one
of the doorways of a great land, made up of a
good many important States, several of which
are larger than Great Britain, Spain, or Italy,
one larger than the German Empire and the
States of New York and Connecticut combined.
It is hard for us to realize that we each have
an individual interest in the whole of this
great land, in its wilderness regions, and in its
wild animals.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. Taking to the Trail 1

II. Into the Wilderness 16

III. Among the Mountains 26

IV. A Sportsman's Eden 38

V. In Apache Land 47

VI. Pigeons and Bear 59

VII. Over the Mogollon Mesa 71

VIII. Across the Desert 90

IX. In the Land of Hopi and Navajo .... 109

X. Good-Bye to Arizona 126

XI. Poplar Trees and Mormon Beards .... 143

XII. Where Packhorses were Unknown .... 163

XIII. Colorado's Disappearing Game 178

XIV. The Frontier Once More 197

XV. Into Wyoming 216

XVI. A Land of Tragic Memories 229

XVII. The Great Question in Jackson's Hole . . . 239

XVIII. Wyoming's Responsibility for Dead Elk . . . 250

XIX. How the Elk May Be Saved 264

XX. Sheep, Antelope, and Moose 275

XXI. The End of the Trail 288

Xlll

TABLE OF ILLUSTRATIONS

FACING PAGE

A Woodland Idyl Frontispiece

We bivouacked beneath the pine trees 14

Here we pitched our tents at an altitude of more than 8,000 feet 14
The Apaches are good-natured and fond of a joke .... 30
Flocks of bleating sheep in charge of silent, listless, Mexican shep-
herds 34

A hogan, the summer dwelling of the Apache 34

Mr. Chester Houck, the only living ex-sheriff of Navajo county,

Arizona 42

Theodore Roosevelt, Apache Indian policeman .... 58

Moulded into fantastic shapes by ages of erosion .... 58
Flocks of sheep and goats form the chief sources of livelihood for

the Navajo 50

The overflow of one of the springs that supply Tuba ... 66

A Hopi Indian pueblo 66

A Navajo blanket weaver and her loom 74

A Navajo Indian policeman 74

We were treated to a weird, uncanny spectacle .... 98
Looking down the canon from Limestone Tanks — Echo Cliffs are

seen in the distance 106

We found ourselves and our outfit safely landed on the North

Bank of the Colorado 110

Vermilion Cliffs 126

Alongside the lines of dancers and directing them were uncostumed

old men 126

Watering at McClellan's Tanks 130

House Rock from which House Rock Valley takes its name . 130
At Limestone Tanks we replenished our canteens .... 138

Kanab Dam, 300 feet long, 50 feet high, built by ranchmen, holds

Kanab's prosperity 138

America's best big game 174

Rapidly disappearing denizens of the wild 190

XV

TABLE OF ILLUSTRATIONS

FACING PAGE

The big cats are deadly enemies of our big game . . . .194
Lunching on the shore of Bear Lake near the Utah-Idaho State

Line 194

Charles Neil's cabin on Buffalo Fork 202

It was a United States Geological Survey camp 202

Nearly four inches of snow had fallen during the night . . .206
Remarkable hot springs in the lower Star Valley, Wyoming . . 206
Below the Preuss Ranch I crossed the line into Wyoming . . 218

The destroyers 218

Booth's Ferry 222

Deposit from the Star Valley hot springs 222

Too many elk and too little forage in Jackson's Hole . . . 226
Seventy elk died around this hay crib in the winter of 1911 . . 234
One fourth of the original herd had starved to death when this

photograph was taken in midwinter 242

Within the shelter of some friendly bush the starving elk lie for

days 250

The result of a slide on the Gros Ventre 258

Looking toward mountain heights into the valley of the Gros

Ventre 258

Elk in Jackson's Hole in the early fall 270

I approached within fifty yards before they noticed me . . . 286

The mountain on the right is gradually sliding down, damming the

Gros Ventre River ... . . 292

Antelope living in alfalfa fields in Gardiner, Montana . . .300

Young elk too weak to drag itself across the fence . ... 300

XVI

SADDLE AND CAMP IN
THE ROCKIES

CHAPTER I

TAKING TO THE TRAIL

IT was late in the afternoon of June twenty-
sixth, 19 10, when I arrived at Holbrook,
Arizona, where I was to begin my long
horseback journey through the big game coun-
try. I had chosen Holbrook as my outfitting
and starting point, because of its central loca-
tion between the largest primeval forest in the
United States and the Apache Indian country
to the southward, and a wide stretch of arid
but interesting desert, including the Navajo,
Hopi, and Paiute Indian reservations to the
northward.

With saddle and pack horses as means of
transportation, I was first to turn southward

1

2 SADDLE AND CAMP

through the great forests into the White Moun-
tains, then westward through the Apache
country, and finally in a general northerly
course recross the railroad at Winslow, traverse
the arid reaches lying between it and Utah,
cross the State of Utah, and a corner of Idaho,
turn into Wyoming, and thence proceed north-
ward through Yellowstone National Park and
into Montana, which I hoped to reach in early
November before heavy winter snows blocked
the trail.

This journey would carry me through the
heart of some of the largest unsettled areas of
the West. It would afford me a more or less
intimate view of some of our best game country,
bring me in contact with hunters, settlers and
Indians, and give me an opportunity not only to
study the condition of the game itself, but to
learn a good deal of local sentiment and the
operation of game laws in widely separated sec-
tions. Incidentally I should see some of the
large cattle ranches, the cowmen, the sheep and
the sheepherders, and a good deal of Nature's
Wonderland.

Probably because it was not customary for
the Limited to stop at Holbrook, the usual as-
semblage of curious town-folk were not at the
station to meet the train when I arrived, and

TAKING TO THE TRAIL S

the sandy street that leads northward past the
station was quite deserted. While I stood un-
certain in which direction to turn, two young
men, spurred and booted, in shirt sleeves and
wearing jaunty sombreros, observing my per-
plexity from a corral opposite good-naturedly
came to my assistance.

"I reckon you want a hotel," said one of them,
taking possession of my suitcase without further
introduction and with a self-reliance and air of
proprietorship quite refreshing.

"I reckon I do," I assented, as we turned up
the street to the northward.

"Buyin' broncs?" he asked.

"No."

"Steers?"

"No."

"Wool agent?"

"No. I just came to look around."

He was silent for a few yards, then expressed
his opinion of my visit in accents of disgust.

"This is a hell of a place to come to just t'
look around. Reckon you've had time since the
train left t' see most all there is t' see here. It's
a plumb lonesome town."

We turned through a gateway over which
swung a signboard bearing the legend "Zuck's
Hotel" and into the open door of a cottage.

4 SADDLE AND CAMP

Here he deposited my suitcase in the middle of
a living room with the remark:
"Make yourself t' home. Somebody'll show

up pretty soon."

I offered him a quarter. "What's that for?"

he asked.

"For your services," I replied.

"Nope. Not me. You don't owe me nothin'.
That ain't Arizony way. Just make yourself
t' home."

I thanked the young men and expressed my
appreciation of their hospitality.

Presently Mrs. Zuck, proprietress of the ho-
tel, "turned up" and established me in a com-
fortable room. She told me she was an Eastern
woman and had come West some twenty years
before for her health. She was very glad al-
ways to meet people from the East, for they
seemed like "home folks."

"What part of the East are you from?" I
asked.

"Kansas City," she replied.

Few of the hotels in these small Southwestern
towns have dining rooms connected with them,
but every town has its Chinese, Japanese, or
Mexican restaurants. Holbrook has its full
quota of them, and at "Chinese Charley's" es-
tablishment, reputed the best, I found the serv-

TAKING TO THE TRAIL 5

ice very good indeed as to quantity. Charley's
clientele was typically Southwestern, and
seated about the tables were Mexicans, cow-
punchers, wool freighters, and ranchmen.

Holbrook is the county seat of Navajo county,
and though its population is but five hundred,
it is a town of considerable importance. As
towns go, in this thinly settled section of the
territory, it holds a position here similar to that
of a city of a hundred thousand people in our
more thickly populated East. Winslow, on the
western border of the county, with a population
of two thousand, is the largest town in the
county, and the only one that exceeds Holbrook
in size. Large railroad shops are situated at
Winslow, however, and a considerable propor-
tion of its inhabitants are men employed in the
shops and their families, and they are not, there-
fore, as are the people of Holbrook, perma-
nent residents. The entire population of
Navajo county, including Mexicans and a good
many Indians, is somewhat less than ten thou-
sand, and its area is considerably greater than
the combined areas of the States of Massachu-
setts and Rhode Island.

Holbrook is the center of an extensive cattle
and sheep country. Great cattle and sheep
ranges lie contiguous to it, stretching over

6 SADDLE AND CAMP

the semi-arid or forest lands that surround it in
a radius of a hundred miles or more. For the
most part the cattle ranges are smaller to-day
than they were ten years ago, but many of them
are still very large. The yearly shipment of
steers from Holbrook Station alone is between
10,000 and 15,000 head; of sheep, between
60,000 and 75,000; and the annual shipment of
wool reaches $1,500,000 in value.

This region was the scene of many gun fights
in the romantic days of not long ago, and sur-
vivors of this wild period — the gun men of yes-
terday— are still to be met at every turn. In-
deed the majority of them have not advanced
beyond middle age. Even yet a new type of
rifle is examined with an eye to its qualities as
a "man getter," and back from the railroad
it is not uncommon to meet men with big
six-shooters hanging in holsters from their
belts.

It was in Holbrook that the famous fight
took place between Sheriff Commodore Owens
(Commodore was his Christian name, not a
title) and the notorious Blevens-Cooper gang
of desperadoes, ending in the downfall of the
latter and the general discouragement of bad
men within the county presided over by Owens.
Fearless men, handy with the gun, were always

TAKING TO THE TRAIL 7

chosen here for the office of sheriff. Owens
possessed these qualifications to a high degree.
The Blevens-Cooper gang, consisting of four
members, had been boldly terrorizing the
county for some time. Every one seemed afraid
of them. Finally they became so bold as to
take up their quarters in Holbrook, the county
seat, and made it their base of operations.

Sheriff Owens happened in town one day and
learned of their presence. "I've got warrants
for those fellows, and I think I'll go get them,"
said he. There were no volunteers to assist
him in his forlorn hope, but many warnings
that the desperadoes, who were known to be
good gun men, would surely kill him if he at-
tempted to arrest them.

He carried a rifle when he knocked at the
door. One of the gang opened, attempted to
slam the door when he saw the sheriff, and at
the same time sprang back for his six-shooter
lying on a table, but died before he reached it.
Another — the youngest of the gang — took a pot
shot at the sheriff from a doorway, missed, and
he, too, immediately ceased to exist. The other
two tried to escape, but the sheriff saw them,
and while one could count two, both were down.
One of these was only wounded. He recovered,
served a sentence in prison, and is still living

8 SADDLE AND CAMP

in the neighborhood, a peaceable citizen. It is
said that during the fight Sheriff Owens never
once lifted his rifle to his shoulder, but fired
every shot from his hip.

Another notorious gang that infested this sec-
tion not many years ago was known as the
Smith gang. Several murders were laid at
their door. Finally, after killing a deputy sher-
iff and a ranchman, who, with two other ranch-
men, had cornered them, they left the country,
and are supposed now to be in Sonora, Mexico,
though I was told by men who claimed to know
them that they had seen two members of the
gang in Wyoming during the summer of 1909.

Holbrook has several saloons, one church, a
school, and a weekly newspaper. The pro-
prietor of the paper, who is also its editor and
publisher, sets the type and prints it by hand
with the aid of one assistant. The printing
office was in the front room of a three-room,
unpainted frame building,' while the editor oc-
cupied the rear rooms as living quarters. The
editor was absent at the time of my visit, and a
native told me he had just "corralled a wife
somewheres south."

Mr. W. H. Clark, local United States Emi-
gration Agent, was good-naturedly editing and
publishingthe paper while the editor was absent,

TAKING TO THE TRAIL 9

incidentally satisfying long pent-up literary am-
bitions. He was indeed making his mark as edi-
tor pro tern. Every issue of the paper during
his incumbency contained items uncompliment-
ary to the absent editor and some really remark-
able editorials upon various matters, as well
as startling and bold comments on local people
and local affairs. I never heard what hap-
pened when the editor, who had a good deal
of pride in the dignity of his paper, returned
to resume his chair.

Upon Mr. Clark's recommendation and with
his assistance I engaged as guide, John Lewis,
a former United States forest ranger and a man
particularly well acquainted with the wilder-
ness which I proposed to traverse. Lewis lived
on his ranch near Pinedale, a small settlement
fifty miles to the southward, and it was ar-
ranged that he should meet me in Pinedale
two days later, endeavoring in the meantime to
secure the horses necessary for our journey.

On the day following my arrival at Holbrook
the country was visited by a terrific thunder-
storm, accompanied by high wind and a three
hours' downpour of rain. Before the storm
the bed of the Rio Puerco, which joins the Lit-
tle Colorado River here, was as dry as ashes;
when the rain ceased it was flowing three feet

10 SADDLE AND CAMP

deep, though I was told that two rainless days
would turn it again into a dry, dusty, sand wash.
This was the first shower for many weeks, and
the whole country was parched and burned be-
fore its advent. The rainy period is expected to
begin in the first week in July, and in normal
seasons one may then look for almost daily
showers until its close.

Warm as the days may be, the evenings are
always cool in central and northern Arizona.
The shower left the atmosphere clear and
balmy, the clean-washed trees and foliage in
the door yards, nurtured by irrigation, per-
fumed the evening air, the mocking birds sang
tempestuously, and far out over the western
stretch of sand the sun sank in a bed of misty
yellow.

Surrounding Holbrook is a tract embracing
several thousands of square miles of uninhabi-
ted and for the most part arid territory. This
desert was formerly the feeding ground of
large herds of antelope, and a few years ago
the traveler riding over it in nearly any direc-
tion was very certain to encounter considerable
numbers of them. Nowadays one is particu-
larly fortunate to see two or three, or perhaps
half a dozen, stragglers in the course of several
days' ride. Hunters destroyed them when they

TAKING TO THE TRAIL 11

were plentiful, without regard to needs, and
until quite recently the law offered the animals
no protection. Even now, though antelope are
perpetually protected by law, not many natives
will let pass an opportunity to kill them.

I had engaged a man to take me to Pinedale,
and at eight o'clock on the morning following
the storm, in a light rig drawn by a pair of able
horses, we turned into the road across the
southern desert. The sun was fearfully hot, the
country through which we drove a gently rising
plain of sand and sagebrush, with no other visi-
ble life than rapidly moving lizards and chame-
leons, sluggish horned toads, or an occasional
jack rabbit, which scurried away at our ap-
proach, or sat in fancied safety behind a bit
of low brush, his long ears overtopping his
hiding place and betraying his presence. Once
or twice heavily laden freighters were met, with
cargoes of wool from distant ranches, slowly
and toilsomely winding their way to the rail-
road. Each outfit consisted of two ponderous
wagons, one hitched behind the other, drawn by
six jaded horses, urged forward by a driver
mounted upon the off-wheel animal.

I was glad indeed when Snowflake, a small
Mormon settlement, a green oasis in the desert,
was sighted shortly after noon, for here we were

12 SADDLE AND CAMP

to halt for an hour to feed our horses and re-
fresh ourselves.

Upon leaving Snowflake, juniper, scrub oaks
and stunted pine brush were encountered, and
with each mile, as we proceeded, this scrubby
growth increased in size until presently it at-
tained the dignity of trees, suggestive of the
forest we were approaching and were soon to
enter.

At Taylor, another small Mormon settlement,
five miles beyond Snowflake, we were fortunate
enough to discover for sale a plump little six-
year-old sorrel saddle pony, weighing about
eight hundred pounds, warranted sound, tough
enough to carry me over rough trails indefi-
nitely, and thoroughly tamed. This last qualifi-
cation was, in my estimation, by no means the
least of the pony's virtues. I had heard much
of the bucking broncos of Arizona and had en-
tertained a fear of being sent sprawling down
some rocky trail by an ill-broken or over-play-
ful animal; and I was never ambitious to dis-
tinguish myself as a "bronco buster."

Many times I had been warned to beware by
men who had innocently and unwittingly been
lured by practical jokers to mount broncos ad-
dicted to bucking. Therefore, on a level road
I tried the pony out, even mounting him with

TAKING TO THE TRAIL 13

nothing but a rope around his neck and without
bit. Amiable as he appeared, the white showed
very prominently in a corner of each eye, and
this led me to be suspicious that he might pos-
sess questionable traits. He proved, however,
to be active, fearless, and gentle as a kitten, and
I purchased him.

Button was my pony's name. It developed
that he had a great deal of individuality, and I
shall refer to him again, for we became very
much attached to each other and were constant
companions during my entire journey. Like all
the horses of this region, he began life as a
wild horse on the open range, and, until he was
roped and made captive, foraged his living,
winter and summer, without the care of man
and as free as the wild deer of the hills he
roamed.

At five o'clock in the evening we entered the
quaint little frontier village of Pinedale — a
day's drive of nearly half a hundred miles.
Pinedale has a population of seventy-seven.
With the exception of one roomy frame dwell-
ing, the houses, scattered among the pines, are
primitive log cabins, with immense stone chim-
neys plastered with mud.

The frame dwelling is the home of Mormon
Bishop E. M. Thomas, and here I found wel-

14 SADDLE AND CAMP

come and entertainment for the night, with one
other guest, a Mr. Searle, a young geologist
making scientific studies in the vicinity, with
a view to the location of underground water
supplies that might be utilized for irrigation.

Shortly after our arrival, John Lewis, my
guide, appeared. He had arranged with a
nearby ranchman to bring horses to the village
the next morning for our inspection, but when
at the appointed time this ranchman and an-
other came in with animals, the prices asked
were so exorbitant that Lewis declined to con-
sider them. The men had learned of my com-
ing and my need and had decided to take ad-
vantage of the opportunity to reap a harvest
from a tenderfoot.

Fortunately I had secured "Button," and as
Lewis had a fine young saddle horse of his own,
we required but one other as a pack animal ; for
our entire outfit, including tent, bedding, and
food, did not much exceed one hundred pounds
in weight. A consultation was held, and it was
decided to retreat to Taylor in the hope of se-
curing a suitable pony in that more populous
settlement.

It was past noon when Taylor was reached.
A canvass of the town was made, and presently
a clownish little white pony was offered us at

We Bivouacked Beneath the Pine Trees.

Here We Pitched Our Tents at an Altitude of More Than 8,000 Feet.

TAKING TO THE TRAIL 15

a reasonable price. We were uncertain of the
pony's powers of endurance, but finally pur-
chased him with the hope that he would answer
our purpose until we reached the Apache reser-
vation, where John felt certain we could secure
a better qualified animal. This pony had a
large "W" branded on his left shoulder, which
suggested to John that "William" would be an
appropriate name for him, and this he was
dubbed, though he quickly learned to answer
to Bill and Billy as well.

Thus our outfit was completed, and at five
o'clock on the afternoon of June thirtieth we
rode out of Taylor, glad to be finally in the
saddle and on the trail.

CHAPTER II

INTO THE WILDERNESS.

OUR evening's ride carried us through
the characteristic arid land lying be-
low the timbered region, the greater
part of it incapable of agricultural develop-
ment because of no known water supply for
irrigation. It is said that not much more than
five per cent of Arizona is adapted to agricul-
ture, because of insufficient water to irrigate,
but it is probable that much of that now
deemed practically valueless will some day be
watered and tilled through the discovery of sub-
terranean springs.

At sunset we rode into Shumway, a little fron-
tier settlement lying in a depression in the hills,
where the water of a small brook irrigates two
hundred or so acres of land which the settlers
have brought under a high state of cultivation.

16

■*~

INTO THE WILDERNESS Vt

Shumway, like nearly all of the far-scattered
hamlets and villages in this part of Arizona,
is a Mormon settlement and derives its name
from a family named Shumway, who emigrated
here from Long Valley, in southern Utah, nearly
thirty years ago. To the traveler of to-day,
this seems a frontier, far from civilization, but
thirty years ago, before the railroad was built,
it was indeed a frontier, and the emigrants who
came in prairie schooners traversed many hun-
dreds of miles of burning naked desert to
reach it.

We drew up before the largest and most pre-
tentious of the half dozen cabins that make up
the hamlet, and were greeted by Mr. W. G.
Shumway, one of the original pioneers of the
place. Mr. Shumway knew John and offered
us the hospitality of his home and forage for
our horses for the night. The open range lying
about the settlement gave small promise of pas-
ture for the animals, and we were glad to ac-
cept.

That evening Mr. Shumway told us of the
privations of the settlers during the first winters
— how they had come into the country with de-
pleted stores, and hunted deer and antelope
while building their cabins, that they might
vary with venison an otherwise continuous diet

18 SADDLE AND CAMP

of barley, filled with dirt and grit, the only
food they possessed, which they ground in mor-
tars for bread, or sometimes cooked whole.

"But times have changed," said he, "since the
railroad came. The young folks don't appre-
ciate it. They think they've got it hard. We
used to have to drive the two hundred and
twenty-five miles to Albuquerque to get anything
we couldn't raise or make ourselves, and then
weren't sure of getting it, and we never had a
newspaper. Now we've got the railroad right
at our door, down to Holbrook, and we can get
most anything there. All we got to do is
hitch up and drive over. And they print a
paper there once a week that gives us the news."

Holbrook is fifty miles away! But in this
country fifty miles is not far, and a settler so
near a railroad considers himself fortunate.

"Deer were always plentiful here until with-
in two or three years ago," said Mr. Shumway.
"Until then we frequently saw them from the
cabin door, and we could get a piece of meat
almost any time. But recently, for some reason,
they rarely come down, and it's necessary to go
to the mountains to hunt them."

A dozen miles beyond Shumway we rode
through Show Low, a collection of miserable
log and adobe cabins, very parched and pov-

INTO THE WILDERNESS 19

erty stricken in appearance. Down through the
little valley in which the village stands flows
Show Low Creek, whose waters are diverted to
irrigate the small surrounding ranches. Some
twenty years ago Show Low formed part of the
one-time extensive cattle ranch and range of
Cooley and Huning, and here the main ranch-
house was situated. The village and creek re-
ceived their names from a game of seven-up
played between the partners with the ranch as
the stake. Later I met Mr. Cooley, and he told
me the true story of this memorable game of
cards.

"Huning and I were playing a game of seven-
up," said he, "to see who should make bread for
supper and wash the dishes, for we had no cook
at the time. We stood five to six in Huning's
favor. Seven, you know, is the game. Dia-
monds were trumps. On the last hand I drew
the ace and the tray. I banked on the deuce
being still in the deck, the ace counted one, and
if Huning didn't hold the deuce the tray was
low and the game was mine.

" 'Make the game worth while,' says I. 'Let
it be ten thousand dollars or the ranch.'

" 'It's a go,' said Huning.

"I covered the center spot on my tray.

Now,' said I, 'show low and it's yours.'

<< i

20 SADDLE AND CAMP

"And, damn him, he showed the deuce and

won ':

Huning later disposed of the land in small
parcels to Mormon settlers, and the hamlet grew
up around the old ranchhouse. It is now a post-
office, on the mail stage route to Fort Apache,
the latter ninety miles from Holbrook, the near-
est railway point.

The sun beat down with an intense heat and
the sand through which the horses plodded fet-
lock-deep reflected the rays with dazzling
brightness. Chameleons scurried away into the
sage brush as we passed, and now and again a
frightened jack rabbit scampered across the
trail. We halted to eat our luncheon under the
shade of a small tree by the muddy waters of
an irrigation ditch in Show Low, and, our
horses and ourselves refreshed, rode forward on
a steadily rising grade, presently to enter the
great pine forests higher up.

Here was delightful contrast to the sandy,
parched desert through which we had been pass-
ing. The trees stood tall and straight, reaching
up toward the blue and cloudless heavens and
casting a grateful shade. Beneath lay an even
carpet of pine needles, unobstructed by brush
or thicket, and the atmosphere was sweet with
forest perfumes. Innumerable gray squirrels

INTO THE WILDERNESS 21

darted here and there, or sat up to watch us as
we passed. Once some cowboys hailed us, and
we stopped to chat for a few moments where
they were dismounted in a shady nook.

At sunset we entered Pinetop, a small collec-
tion of log cabins scattered among the pines, and
halted to let our ponies drink while we filled
our canteens, and added a few simple necessi-
ties to our supply of provisions at the village
store, for this was the last outpost of civiliza-
tion that we should encounter for many days.
We were to turn now into the broken region of
the White Mountains.

Good forage was found for the horses a mile
beyond Pinetop, and here we bivouacked be-
neath the pine trees. The horses were hobbled
and turned loose. The canteens furnished water
for coffee, and its appetizing odor, mingled with
that of frying bacon — a combination of odors
that surpasses anything else in the realm of out-
door cookery — was soon suggesting a delicious
meal. And then, in the twilight, we sat by the
camp-fire, cozy and comfortable as the evening
chill came on, and smoked and chatted, or lis-
tened to the night sounds of the wilderness. At
this, our first camp, we did not trouble to pitch
a tent — we rarely did on the trip — but spread
our beds under the open sky, where we could

M SADDLE AND CAMP

lie and watch the stars, so low that tall pine
tops seemed almost to touch them, until sleep

claimed us.

When we arose at daybreak John's horse and
Billy were grazing nearby, but Button was no-
where to be seen. Everywhere we searched for
him, but he had vanished. We saddled the two
horses and rode back to Pinetop to inquire
whether anyone had observed the runaway pass-
ing through the settlement. No one had seen
him and the man who kept the little store as-
sured us that he had certainly not passed that
way.

Then John resorted to woodcraft and pro-
ceeded to search for tracks of a hobbled horse.
Presently he discovered the trail where Button
had cut around the village to avoid detection
and turned into the main trail again, some dis-
tance below. This trail he followed for several
miles and finally overtook Button, as he ex-
pressed it, "hitting out for Taylor as though the
devil was after him."

Button's escapade delayed us half a day, and
it was well in the afternoon when we reached
the Cooley ranch — the Cooley of Show Low
fame. The ranch is a large one, situated on the
Apache Indian reservation. Mr. Cooley has
an Apache wife, and through this connection

INTO THE WILDERNESS 23

with the tribe enjoys the special privilege of
ranching within reservation bounds. Cooley
himself has long held a strong influence over
the Apaches. At the time of the Geronimo war
he induced considerable numbers of them to re-
frain from going on the warpath. These neu-
trals he drew together on his ranch and kept
them there in peace until the war was ended.

Now and again, as we rode, prowling coyotes
were seen, innumerable gray squirrels ran hither
and thither, and an occasional startled rabbit
dashed away. Though this is an excellent deer
countrv in the autumn, the deer had now re-
tired to better watered regions, and no fresh
signs were observed.

Our trail led us gradually into higher alti-
tudes and through a well-timbered forest of
magnificent pine, with now and again wide,
grassy open spaces. These grass-covered parks
are natural feeding grounds for elk, and for-
merly this whole region was well stocked with
them. This was one of the ranges of Merriam's
elk (Cervus merriami). Merriam's elk had an-
tlers straighter at the tips, and a broader, more
massive skull, than either the Cervus canadensis,
the elk now inhabiting Wyoming, Montana, and
Idaho, or the Cervus occidentalis, found in
northern California, Oregon, and Washington,

U SADDLE AND CAMP

with darker nose and redder head and legs than
the former, but not so dark as the latter. Hunt-
ers in the White Mountain region — cattlemen,
sheepmen, Indians armed with modern repeat-
ing rifles — have played sad havoc with these
elk, but it was said a band of them still inhabited
the region.

I wished to ascertain whether any in fact sur-
vived, and, if so, how many, and to gather some
estimate of the ranges still open to them, both
for winter and summer feeding. While elk
formerly roamed over the Mogollon Mesa, as
well as here, I was well aware that the Mogol-
lon Mesa elk had either migrated or all been
killed, and that if any remained in Arizona they
were to be found in the White Mountains. We
were now coming upon magnificent ranges, in
perhaps the finest and most admirably adapted
country for elk on the continent — wild, secluded,
and beyond the probability of settlement for a
long while to come, and had high hopes that
some indication of the presence of elk might be
observed.

Two days after leaving Pinetop we turned
into a gulch through which flows the head
waters of the west fork of the White River,
and here pitched our tent. We were now well
up in the mountains, at an altitude of more than

INTO THE WILDERNESS 25

eight thousand feet, and the water was clear and
cold. John assured me that this was one of
the best trout streams in Arizona, and we deter-
mined to try our luck.

CHAPTER HI

AMONG THE MOUNTAINS

OUR tent was pitched upon a level spot,
with a thinly timbered grassy slope ris-
ing behind. Before us the cold, clear
river, winding through a deep gulch, poured
down with much noise over a rocky bed. On
the opposite side of the river— it was only a
creek here, for we were not far from its head—
a steep, forest-clad mountain rose from the
water's edge. The atmosphere, dry and in-
vigorating, at an altitude of above eight thou-
sand feet, was redolent with the perfume of the
great pine wilderness, stretching far away in
every direction, and, with the noisy stream, of-
fered delightful contrast to the waterless and
barren tracts we had traversed in the lower
country.
Our horses hobbled and turned into knee-deep

26

AMONG THE MOUNTAINS W

grass and all made snug about camp, we de-
termined upon trout for supper, if trout were
to be had, and John had given me his assurance
that the river was "plumb full of them." His
enthusiasm, indeed, had prepared me for some
of the most wonderful trout fishing of my ex-
perience.

John had never used artificial flies and he
examined mine with critical interest and undis-
guised skepticism as to their probable adequacy
in luring trout. Finally he found one that
"looked as though it might fool the fish," and
accepted it. His faith, however, was pinned to
grasshoppers, and to insure success, in case the
fly failed him, he selected some snelled hooks.
Then cutting himself a "pole," he turned down-
stream, while I, with my steel fly rod, ascended
the river.

From the first pool in which I cast I landed
three, with a brown hackle; from the next pool
three more. That was all. Pool after pool I
whipped and tried nearly every fly in my col-
lection, but not another rise could I get. I re-
membered John's suggestion as to grasshoppers,
but determined to take no fish I could not lure
with an artificial fly, for I was angling for sport
rather than numbers.

The sun had dropped behind the hills, and

28 SADDLE AND CAMP

the dusk of evening was gathering when I re-
turned to camp, to find John by the river side
cleaning his afternoon's catch, which numbered
eighteen.

"I tried that made-up fly," he explained, "but
it wouldn't go. They wanted grasshoppers, and
I gave 'em grasshoppers. I'd have caught
more," he added apologetically, "but after I'd
been out half an hour I felt in my bones some-
thing was going plumb wrong in camp, and I
came up to look the outfit over. That little devil
Button was gone. I caught him a mile away,
hitting it up for Taylor like a spark out of hell.
I brought him back and picketed him to a stake,
and before I was out of sight he had pulled
the stake up and was off again. Now, I've got
him picketed to a pine that I reckon he won't

move."

Button, the little rascal, picketed with a lasso
to a pine tree, looked very forlorn and restless.
Evidently he was to prove a source of annoy-
ance, with his tendency to return, upon every
opportunity that offered, to his old home. Un-
less forage is very good indeed, a picketed horse
will not find sufficient food within the compass
of a rope length to keep him in working condi-
tion for long, and naturally we desired our
horses to have free range, for if they were to

AMONG THE MOUNTAINS 29

make the journey we had planned for them it
was requisite that they should feed well.

Bright and early the following morning we
were on the stream again. The trout were now
ravenous for flies, and in less than two hours I
returned to camp with a long string, averaging
between eight and twelve inches in length. I
concluded that John would do equally well with
his favorite grasshoppers and that we should
have, with our combined catch, all that we could
use. He had gone beyond a beaver dam a mile
below camp.

It was noon when John appeared, loaded
down with trout. We had so many between us,
in fact, that to save them we were compelled
to split the largest and dry them by suspending
them over a smudge. In the dry atmosphere of
Arizona fish may be cured in a few hours by
this method, without salting, and will remain
sweet and good indefinitely. The trout which
we dried proved a very welcome relish later,
when we were in arid regions farther to the
westward.

From the West Fork our trail carried us with
a gradual rise through mountain glens and ma-
jestic pine forests, across an open range where
cattle grazed in hundreds, and once past thou-
sands of bleating sheep in charge of silent, list-

30 SADDLE AND CAMP

less Mexican shepherds. Although these latter
appeared to be lounging away an existence with-
out occupation, they nevertheless had the sheep
under their watchful eyes, keeping them within
bounds and guarding them against coyotes,
which we frequently saw in the distance, skulk-
ing for prey, or jaguars, inhabiting mountain
ravines and canons, which one never sees but
which silently steal out in the night to destroy
cattle and sheep. Once we saw some cowboys
in the distance with pack horses laden with camp
supplies, trailing in from St. Johns.

A noon halt was made one day by a spring
that bubbled, cool and refreshing, near the top
of a gentle slope and sent a rivulet flowing down
through a wooded glen into a valley below. A
hundred yards above the spring, at the edge of
the timber, a wide, grassy plain stretched far
away, to the eastward. A few hundred yards
south of the spring, on a bit of rising ground,
was a large corral, now disused and falling into
decay The corral once belonged to a great
cattle ranch, and the grassy plain was part of
the range.

Here, at the edge of the timber, above the
spring, one of the nerviest gun fights in the
history of Arizona took place some five or six
years ago. For several years two well-known

The Apaches are Good-Natured and Fond of a Joke.

AMONG THE MOUNTAINS 31

cattlemen had held the range in common. They
were very good friends until one day a misun-
derstanding led to hard words and ended in
the two opening fire upon each other at close
range with 30-30 rifles. One of them fell, but
continued firing, at the same time crawling be-
hind a pine. The other emptied his rifle into
the tree, in the hope that the bullets would pass
through it and reach the man behind it, whose
rifle had been emptied. Then he advanced,
broke his rifle-stock over the head of the man
on the ground, staggered back, and sitting down
where he could see his apparently dead antago-
nist, exclaimed:

"You got me, you

, but I got you, too," and in

a few minutes died. He had two soft-nosed
30-30 bullets not an inch apart and just under
his heart, and they were evidently the first two
shots fired by the other, whose aim after he was
down had gone wild.

The assembled cowboys, believing both dead,
put them into a wagon and started for St.
Johns with the bodies. Presently the one with
battered head showed signs of life. In spite
of bullets and battering, he recovered and is
still living in the country. I met him during
my journey and found him one of the most

32 SADDLE AND CAMP

genial, hospitable gentlemen it has been my for-
tune to know in all the West. He spoke of the
fight incidentally and told me that while the
other man was a splendid fellow normally, he
had a fearful temper, was an old-time gunman,
too quick and ready to shoot, and "when it
came to a showdown I was forced to use my
gun in self-defense or be killed."

It was not far from here that the Smith gang
of outlaws had a battle with a deputy sheriff
and three cowboys. The sheriff and his party
had been looking for the Smiths all day. It
was twilight when they topped a ridge and dis-
covered the outlaws cooking supper in a ravine
on the opposite side. The Smiths saw the dep-
uty sheriff's party at the same time, and all hands
took to rocks for cover. The men below had
the advantage, for they were in a hollow and
in a shadow, while the others were on the crest
of the ridge which stood in sharp silhouette
against the sky.

Presently the deputy sheriff indiscreetly
showed his head and was killed, and a few min-
utes later one of the cowboys fell. The odds
were hopelessly against the two remaining ones,
Peterson and Barrett by name, and they with-
drew. The following day a new posse was or-
ganized to follow the outlaws, but they escaped.

......

AMONG THE MOUNTAINS 33

Barrett was later killed in a duel, but Peterson
still lives in the neighborhood of St. Johns.

Previous to this encounter Barrett, a fearless
gun fighter, received warning that one of the
Smiths would shoot him on sight. A few days
later at a turn of the trail he came face to face
with two of the Smiths, one the man that had
sent him the warning. They drew their horses
up a few yards apart.

"Well," said Smith, "I suppose you got my
message?"

"I did," replied Barrett, "and here I am.
Now if you gents want to shoot, go ahead. May-
be two of you can get me, but I'll sure get one
of you "

Barrett had a reputation for quick and accu-
rate work with his six-shooter and the Smiths
knew it.

"Hell!" exclaimed the man that had sent the
challenge, and they rode on.

One of our night camps was on the head-
waters of the Little Colorado River, clear, cold,
and alive with jumping trout. The traveler who
has seen this stream winding its way across the
Navajo desert, thick with mud and so foul
horses will not drink its waters, would scarcely
believe it a pure and beautiful stream at its
source. But like all the streams rising in

34 SADDLE AND CAMP

springs fed by the snowbanks of these rugged
peaks of the White Mountains, this is the case.
We were here, on the lower rises of Ord and
Thomas Peaks (the latter locally known as "Old
Baldy") , at an altitude of 9,500 feet. At timber
line, reaching up on the bald summit of Baldy,
the snowbanks lay, gradually melting under the
heat of a July sun. We could see them con-
stantly during the days we were circling the
mountain and often halted, sweltering in the
terrific midday heat below, to look longingly
toward them, reaching far up above the timber
line.

Big Lake, which is, in fact, a rather small lake,
lies not far to the southeast of Ord and Thomas
Peaks, and here we loitered nearly a day re-
connoitering the surroundings. Big Lake is a
breeding place for ducks and was literally alive
with mother birds and their young, chiefly mal-
lards and teal, though there were other varieties
as well. The lake was very low, and a wide
expanse of grass-covered mire, which separated
it from the mainland and was too deep and soft
to cross, prevented close observation, though
with the assistance of binoculars we were able
to see the ducks very well from the solid shore.
I was told that in early spring and late autumn
a great many geese are to be seen here also.

Flocks of Bleating Sheep in Charge of Silent, Listless, Mexican Shepherds.

A Hogan, the Summer Dwelling of the Apaches.

AMONG THE MOUNTAINS 35

Big Lake lies at an altitude of nearly nine
thousand feet above sea level and has practically
a northern Canadian climate. Even at this mid-
summer season we experienced hoar frost the
night we camped upon its shores. Directly sur-
rounding the lake is a semi-barren stretch, punc-
tured with innumerable prairie-dog holes, over
which could be seen many prowling coyotes
looking for prey.

Here was the headquarters of the one-time
famous S. U. outfit, an immense cattle ranch,
and on the east side of the lake rise two knolls
known as the S. U. knolls. The ranch buildings
and corrals have fallen to decay.

This is not far from the territorial boundary
line between Arizona and New Mexico, and
directly east of us rose the San Francisco range
and north of us the rugged and picturesque Es-
cudilla Peaks. Our trail carried us to the edge
of the Prieto Plateau, then northward again into
a magnificently timbered and well-watered re-
gion, where we rose from pine to spruce and
quaking aspens. Here were innumerable fresh
deer tracks, and once we came upon the newly
made track of a large bear. Spruce grouse, too,
are quite plentiful after one reaches the line
of spruce trees, and many turkey feathers told us
we were in a wild turkey country.

36 SADDLE AND CAMP

Our trail turned down the bed of a dry brook-
let, which, fed by springs, presently became a
running rivulet and at length a creek. We were
upon the headwaters of Black River, a tributary
of Salt River. It derives its name from the
fact that the flowing water appears as black as
ink, though upon dipping a cupful it was found
to be as clear as crystal. Mineral deposits have
stained the boulders and sand of the creek bed
black. Near Thomas Peak are great lava beds,
said to be a full three thousand feet in thickness.

Our trail several days before had carried us
out of the White River Apache Indian Reserva-
tion, but here we entered it again as we circled
Thomas Peak and cut across to Reservation
Creek, where, while we halted for a noon rest,
we caught our dinner of trout. In our search
for elk and other game signs, we wished to work
well in upon Old Baldy. With this in view
we turned northwesterly, and presently found
ourselves entangled in a series of ridges, deep
gulches, and rugged canon defiles, every ridge
covered with such a maze of fallen timber that
it was with the greatest difficulty we were able
to maintain our course or maneuver our horses.

Steadily we rose to higher altitudes, working
our way through the network of fallen tree
trunks, over rocks, and ascending slopes where

AMONG THE MOUNTAINS 37

it seemed at times impossible that the horses
could keep their equilibrium; or dropping over
what seemed almost sheer walls, John in the
lead carefully picking the way. At length,
when we had attained an altitude of upwards
of twelve thousand feet, we had a practically
unobstructed view of the Baldy's summit and
were very close to the snow banks.

For two days we had observed smoke rising
over the peaks. Here at this high point we were
near enough to a forest fire to see tongues of
flame sweep up tall trees to the eastward and
below us; and over the ridges great clouds of
smoke hung, dark and ominous.

CHAPTER IV

A SPORTSMAN'S EDEN

OUR course was now directed toward Fort
Apache. We had made an almost com-
plete circuit of Ord and Thomas Peaks
and seen much of the adjacent wilderness since
reaching the West Fork of the White River.
As a result of our observations and inquiries
among cowmen, forest rangers, soldiers, and In-
dians who visit the region, I may say most posi-
tively that in spite of what was told me at Hol-
brook and elsewhere, not one elk remains in
the White Mountains of Arizona, and I am
satisfied that not one wild elk remains in Ari-
zona, for it is conceded that there are none on
the Mogollon Mesa. From the information
which I gathered, there is no doubt the last elk
was killed, or the last remnant of the herds that
once occupied the region migrated eastward,

38

-;:'.!ilsi*

_

A SPORTSMAN'S EDEN 39

never to return, five or six years ago. No elk
and no signs of elk have been seen here within
that period, according to reputable native ob-
servers.

And what a shame this is! Here lie thou-
sands of square miles of country admirably
adapted to elk, in addition to other game ani-
mals, capable of maintaining large herds, and
yet unutilized. This is an example of our
thoughtless waste in the past and our heedless-
ness of the future. Had the government taken
moderate care to preserve the animals, there
might still have been here a permanent herd suf-
ficiently large to supply an annual increase that
would permit a reasonable open hunting sea-
son each year.

Even yet it would not seem too great a task to
restock these ranges with a small nucleus herd,
but it would be quite useless to do so unless
the government were to establish a stricter sur-
veillance than at present. There is practically
no restraint upon poaching in Arizona. Ani-
mals and birds are killed out of season, and
those who kill them have little or no fear of
punishment and rarely are punished.

It was particularly gratifying to discover un-
mistakable evidence that a small band of moun-
tain sheep still inhabits Baldy. I was also as-

40 SADDLE AND CAMP

sured by several men who claimed to have seen
them a few months before my visit that moun-
tain sheep also survive in the Four Peaks, on
the Arizona-New Mexico line, south of Ord
Peak, though probably few in number. These
mountains are well adapted to this, the finest of
our game animals, and it is to be hoped that
poachers will permit them to increase.

Other species of game are fairly plentiful
here. There are a good many deer, chiefly black
tail, but also a few white tail, and a few silver
tip bears, as well as the small black or brown
bear.

Wild turkeys are very plentiful in the region
west of the two peaks. On a single morning we
saw three large flocks within a period of two
hours. Turkey feathers were common at every
turn. A superstition prohibits the Apaches
from killing turkeys, and they are therefore
only interfered with by white hunters, though
of course many of them are destroyed by the
big cats.

Predatory animals, such, for instance, as cats
and mountain lions, are over numerous, and they
undoubtedly prey to a very large extent upon
game animals and birds. To hunt them, how-
ever, or to hunt bears successfully in this broken
country, one must have the assistance of a good

HMMtM— — _.

A SPORTSMAN'S EDEN 41

pack of well-trained dogs, as well as be pre-
pared to do some rough work on horseback.

This, indeed, is one of the most attractive re-
gions for the sportsman in the United States.
An ample open season is offered, and for deer
and turkey hunting it is unsurpassed, while
every stream of the White Mountains is abun-
dantly stocked with trout. The fish are com-
paratively small, to be sure, but they are plenti-
ful enough to satisfy the most ambitious angler.
A superstition similar to that which prevents
Apaches killing turkeys also prevents their kill-
ing fish, though the younger generation of In-
dians is breaking away from it and some of
them angle for trout.

Our trail led us across many canons. Each
canon has its stream, and all of them are trout
streams. Among these may be mentioned Para-
dise, Apachita, Little Bonita, and Big Bonita
creeks, to say nothing of numerous unnamed
brooks, all tributaries of the Black or White
Rivers. At midday and evening they supplied
us with our meals.

Referring to the Apache superstition against
catching fish — and I may add against killing
any bird that catches fish — and the fact that
the younger generation is breaking away from
the superstition, we met a party of five mounted

42 SADDLE AND CAMP

bucks, all young fellows, bound for the Big Bo-
nita on an angling expedition. These Apaches
were the first human beings we had seen in six

days.

This is, indeed, a magnificent stretch of rug-
ged wilderness, and the remembrance of my ex-
periences in its great primordial pine forests,
untouched by lumberman's ax, its scenery un-
surpassed for variety and tone, its invigorating
air, its rushing streams, its days and nights of
marvelous beauty, will remain with me as some-
thing worth while.

On the morning that we met the Apaches we
had come upon a blazed trail, which the In-
dians informed us led directly to Fort Apache,
which they estimated as eighteen miles distant.
An hour after meeting them, when we halted
at noon on Little Bonita creek, I took occasion
to bathe, shave, and don clean clothing in antici-
pation of our entrance that evening upon the
semi-civilization of the fort. But our hopes, as
always when one pins one's faith upon an In-
dian's estimate of distance, were doomed to dis-
appointment.

We rode steadily until the afternoon was half
spent, when suddenly we broke out upon a high
point, below which the trail dropped abruptly
into a deep canon, and from a rocky bluff had

Amimm

Mr. Chester Houck, the Only Living Ex-Sheiiff of Navajo County,

Arizona.

A SPORTSMAN'S EDEN 43

our first view of Kelly's Butte, a remarkable
landmark to the westward of Fort Apache.
From the pine-clad wilderness where we stood
we looked down upon a wide range of country,
with stretches of verdureless, sand-piled desert,
the picturesque landscape meeting the sky far
to the westward in an opalescent haze.

Kelly's Butte did not seem far away. The
uninitiated in Arizona travel would scarcely
have estimated it at more than five miles, but
distances in this transparent atmosphere are very
deceptive and one cannot judge them by ordi-
nary methods. I have seen mountains here that
did not seem ten miles away, but were, in fact,
a full fifty; and others that I should scarcely
have placed at more than twenty, but were as
a matter of fact more than a hundred. One
may travel toward a given object all day and
apparently not diminish its distance in the least.

We descended into the canon and presently
came upon a forest rangers' cabin near a brook.
The rangers, D. B. Rudd and Benton Rogers,
typical Arizona frontiermen and two of the
tallest, lankiest men I have ever seen, greeted us
cordially, after the manner of wilderness dwell-
ers, and invited us to camp with them. The
stream, they informed us, was Rock Creek, and
fifteen miles from the fort. To reach Fort

44 SADDLE AND CAMP

Apache that night was quite out of the question,
and we accepted the invitation.

We had traveled full fifteen miles after meet-
ing the Indians. This was a repetition of my
experience with northern tribes. Indians are
absolutely incapable of estimating distance by
the white man's standard. A mile means noth-
ing to them, and their maps, as a gauge of dis-
tance, are absolutely unreliable.

Our horses hobbled and turned loose to graze
in the canon — this was in fact the junction of
three canons — we joined Rudd and Rogers at
the door of their rude quarters. It was a single
room affair constructed by the men themselves
with no other implements than a hammer and
axe, and of no other materials than those to be
found in the surrounding forest.

Presently an open fire was lighted and in a
little while a delicious supper of hot biscuits —
baked in a "Dutch oven" — bacon, potatoes,
canned tomatoes, and coffee were steaming on a
table under the trees. To John and me these
were luxuries, for since leaving Shumway our
diet had consisted of trout, bacon, and squaw
bread.

The meal disposed of and dishes washed, we
sat under the tall pines around the camp-fire
smoking and chatting while a gorgeous Arizona

A SPORTSMAN'S EDEN 45

sunset faded into twilight and a million stars
were born to light the heavens. We told the
rangers of the forest fire on Baldy, and while
we spread our beds upon the ground they made
preparations for an early morning start to fight
the Baldy fire.

Forest rangers furnish their own saddle and
pack horses and as a general rule have excel-
lent animals, well cared for and particularly
adapted for the rugged mountain work that
they are called upon to perform. The ranger's
equipment, when he is on more or less extended
duty, consists of tents, blankets, several days'
provisions, cooking utensils, axes, ropes, a rifle,
and usually a six-shooter. Each man has one
pack horse besides his saddle horse. When he
is on light patrol duty, however, all his equip-
ment and rations are taken on his saddle, and
he is able to carry several days* rations in this
way, for he eliminates tent and all equipment
not absolutely essential, for comfort must often
be sacrificed to weight and speed.

We left Rudd and Rogers, packing and sad-
dling up, shortly after daybreak the next morn-
ing, and wound our way down Rock Creek
Canon and across country to White River
Canon, following the river down as its canon
widened into a valley.

46 SADDLE AND CAMP

The previous day we were riding in forests of
spruce and quaking aspens. Our descent had
carried us through pines and live oaks, where
foliage and climatic conditions were as different
as though separated by a thousand miles. In
the White River valley fields of Apache corn,
wheat, and alfalfa filled all the space capable
of irrigation. Government farmers are teach-
ing the Indians agriculture and instructing
them in irrigation, with the result that some
of them are fairly successful in raising crops.
Here and there were groups of hogans, with
children playing around them, women were
working in cornfields, and now and again a
mounted buck, watching his cattle, dashed along
at a canter. This is the Indian's pace — always
a canter, keeping the pony to it with a quirt.

Bill became very weary under his pack, and
we were compelled to travel at a slow walk to
suit his gait. Once he lay down, and it seemed
unlikely that we should be able to reach Fort
Apache that day with him. But we plodded
on and at one o'clock in the afternoon had the
satisfaction of entering the post.

CHAPTER V

IN APACHE LAND

THE Fort Apache military post is situated
a little north and east of the center of
the White Mountain Apache Reserva-
tion, ninety-five miles from Holbrook. A daily
mail and passenger stage in either direction con-
nects the two points; each stage, starting at three
o'clock in the afternoon and making no stops ex-
cept to change horses, is due to arrive at the
other terminal at eight o'clock the next morn-
ing. At the time of our visit Troops F and H
of the Eighth Cavalry were stationed here, with
a captain as post commander.

The post is maintained rather for its moral
influence upon the Indians than because of any
danger of warlike outbreaks, and it has become
a question with the military authorities whether
the expense of its maintenance is longer war-

48 SADDLE AND CAMP

ranted. The government, in fact, has done little
or nothing toward improvement of late years
and has expended only enough in the way of re-
pairs upon the old barracks and buildings to
keep them in habitable condition, doubtless an-
ticipating the abandonment of the post at a not
far distant day. There is a general feeling,
however, among soldiers stationed here and
among civilians living in and near the reserva-
tion that were the restraint of troops withdrawn
the Indians would become restless and perhaps
commit depredations upon neighboring ranches.

The White Mountain Reservation is divided
into two agencies, the White River Agency in
the north, and the San Carlos in the south, and
embraces a territory ninety-five miles from its
northern to its southern boundary, and seventy
miles from its eastern to its western. The San
Carlos Agency in the south has a population of
approximately three thousand, while the White
River Agency, according to the 1910 census, has
twenty-eight hundred.

It is interesting to note in this connection that
the previous census showed a population of only
2,425 Indians in the White River Agency. The
latest census therefore discloses an increase, since
the previous census, of 2J$. This refers to In-
dians alone. Thus, while our Indians in general

IN APACHE LAND 49

are decreasing, excepting the Navajos, who
are increasing rapidly, the White River Agency-
Indians prove a decided exception to the rule.

This increase is not the result of accessions
from other agencies or reservations, but the nat-
ural excess of births over deaths and is doubt-
less largely, if not wholly, due to the fact that
the Indians here live practically in the open,
still clinging to their old-time hogans for such
shelter from the elements as they require — habi-
tations that permit always of free circulation of
air. When the time comes, as it doubtless will
sooner or later, when they adopt the white man's
closed cabin, tubercular infection will come to
carry them off, as in the case of so many of the
other tribes. Our overzealous and paternal gov-
ernment has in some instances endeavored to
"raise" the Indian to this level of civilization,
and where, under this paternal direction, the
Indians have abandoned their wigwams for
cabins, tuberculosis has, as a matter of course,
developed to kill them off rapidly.

In southern Utah the government once built
some cottages for Paiutes, at considerable ex-
pense. This was doubtless with the object not
only of sheltering the poor, unhoused savage
from pitiless winter blasts, and thus proving to
him by concrete example the superiority in com-

50 SADDLE AND CAMP

fort of the white man's habitation over the In-
dian's tepee, but incidentally to induce him to
remain permanently in one spot and till the
land after the manner of civilized folk, and thus
advance him in the human scale. But the
Paiutes were well aware that their health and
existence demanded open air living. Their
lungs were not suited to the more or less dead
atmosphere of closed rooms. From ancestors
who had only known and lived in the open they
had inherited a physical apparatus that de-
manded a similar mode of life, and so sudden
a change of habits would doubtless have proved
fatal to them. Perhaps they did not reason the
question out in this way, but their conclusion
was sound and to the point.

They looked the cottages over, pronounced
them "No good for Indian; good for horse,"
pitched their tepees alongside the cottages,
stabled their horses in the cottages, and them-
selves continued to live in the tepees. They
never did move into the cottages, it is said,
thereby showing that they knew much more
about hygienic living, for Indians at least, than
did the paternal government. This paternal
government has labored always under the delu-
sion that it could raise the red man in one gen-
eration from the barbaric state to that of a

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IN APACHE LAND 51

highly developed civilization. In other words,
the Indian was expected to do in one genera-
tion what the white man required centuries to
accomplish. But traditions cannot be forgot-
ten, or habits, inherited from a long line of an-
tecedents, changed over night.

Mr. Crouse, the agent for the White River
district, has had wide experience with Indians
and has made a life study of them, their needs,
and characteristics. He keeps his Apaches well
in hand and at the same time places no further
restrictions upon them than are necessary to in-
sure their good behavior, while striving for their
material advancement. For instance, govern-
ment farmers are engaged in teaching them
agriculture and thrift. Women work the fields,
for the "noble red man" could not with self-
respect stoop to this menial employment. Some
of the Apaches have considerable herds of cattle
and own many horses. Herding livestock is not
deemed beneath a man's dignity, and they make
good herdsmen. Stock raising, therefore, is en-
couraged.

Apaches, I learned, are not slow at driving
bargains. This is one of the accomplishments
in which they have had instruction and have
proved apt pupils. At the time of our visit all
the country contiguous to Fort Apache was

m SADDLE AND CAMP

dried and parched, and no forage was to be had
for horses on the open range. After much diffi-
culty we found an Indian with some alfalfa hay
to sell. He offered it to us at two dollars a
hundred — forty dollars a ton. We accepted the
terms with enthusiasm and considered ourselves
fortunate, though we were paying more than
twice the highest market price outside the mili-
tary post. We had to have it, and the Indian
knew it. After our acceptance of his terms he
regretted that he had not demanded more.

I learned that the government pays exorbi-
tant prices for all kinds of forage. It may be
easily understood that high prices paid Indians
for farm products tend to encourage them to in-
creased tillage of the toil, and the custom was
initiated with this commendable object in view.
But the high prices are not confined to Indian
farmers. Contracts are made with outside white
ranchers for oats and other provender at several
times as much as the same ranchers would be
glad to sell the same goods for in open market.

The Indian schools on the reservation will
doubtless ultimately influence the rising genera-
tion to a higher standard of thought, though ex-
perience with Indians sent to distant schools to
be educated is not thus far reassuring. Those
who have returned to their old haunts have al-

IN APACHE LAND 53

most without exception dropped into the old
mode of life as naturally as though they had
never left it. They refuse to speak any but their
native tongue and very frequently are less trac-
table and less inclined to physical endeavor
than their brothers who have not had the ad-
vantage of education.

While I met several Apaches who I knew
understood everything I said to them, I met but
two of the school product, save government In-
dian scouts and policemen, who would admit
that they could speak English. This is doubt-
less due to an inborn desire to shut out all in-
truders from their country and to traditional
resentment against the white man. Tradition,
handed down from father to son, reaching back
to the days of the early Spanish invaders and
strengthened later as other white men came, has
taught them to look upon the white man with
suspicion — as an enemy watching for an oppor-
tunity to take advantage of them and injure
them.

None of our Indians have been more unjust-
ly maligned or misunderstood, perhaps, than the
Apaches. The Apaches do not admit to-day
that they have any fear or stand in awe of our
soldiers. They claim that man for man they
have never been beaten by white troops and

54 SADDLE AND CAMP

that their final subjugation was only accom-
plished by treacherous Indian scouts leading
soldiers to their retreats and through the de-
struction by the white men of the game upon
which they depended for sustenance. This is
the Apache point of view and their delusion.
Holding it, they have stouter hearts to meet
their changed manner of living, and it is well,
for a broken spirited people is a dead people
and an encumbrance.

The Apache's summer hogan, or lodge, is
usually constructed of poles fixed in the ground,
the upper ends bent to the center and lashed to-
gether. This framework of poles is thatched
with branches and grass, or covered with canvas.
The fire is built in the center, after the fashion
general among Indians, and an opening at the
top where the poles are joined permits the smoke
to escape. In the winter, dugouts in banks make
more comfortable quarters.

The Apaches are not handsome of face,
though muscular, alert, and well set up of body,
and as a rule they are exceedingly careless
about their personal appearance. They rarely
wear ornaments. In these respects they are
quite in contrast with their brothers, the Nava-
jos, farther north. When one sees Apache moc-
casins, for example, covered with beads, one

IN APACHE LAND 55

may be certain they were never made for
Apache wear, but for sale to tourists. Attached
to Fort Apache is a detachment of enlisted
Apache scouts, and these men, trim and neat in
the khaki uniform of the army, were fine look-
ing, sinewy, alert, active men.

Native Indian policemen, acting under the In-
dian agent, armed with rifle and revolver, patrol
the reservation. They are the peace officers of
the country and are chosen from the best and
most reliable of the young men. Some of them
have been educated in Indian schools. One of
their duties is to ferret out, and destroy when
found, stores of the native tulapai, an intoxicant
made by the Apaches from fermented corn.
Tulapai leads to many internal fights among the
Indians, and not a few murders during the past
year or two have been directly traced to its
effect. In consequence of this tendency to in-
jure one another the agent has ordered all In-
dians to turn in their firearms to the agency dur-
ing seasons when hunting is prohibited. Medi-
cine dances are also prohibited, for at these
dances the Indians, with the aid of tulapai, work
themselves into a high state of frenzy, which is
very likely to end in bloodshed.

In spite of rules and prohibition, however,
much tulapai is made and consumed, many In-

56 SADDLE AND CAMP

dians do not turn in their arms, and medicine
dances are held. The Indian policemen drink
tulapai like other Apaches, and they are in
sympathy, as a matter of course, with the medi-
cine dances. They close their eyes to the dances,
which they cannot fail to know take place, and
of which in the nature of things the agent and
his aids are unlikely to learn, and policemen
only destroy tulapai when it is so notoriously
in evidence that the authorities will in all proba-
bility learn of its existence and discipline them
for lack of attention to duty if they do not de-
stroy it. The policeman still remains an
Apache, with all the Apache traits and tastes,
even though he is clothed with authority, and
he drinks as much tulapai and as often as he
likes — in secret, so far as his superiors are con-
cerned.

We spent a day and a half at Fort Apache,
and while there I rode over to the White River
Agency house, met Mr. Crouse, the agent, and
received from him a permit giving John and
myself freedom of travel on the reservation.
This may not have been necessary, but it is al-
ways well for the traveler here to have a pass.

Several old Indian women were seated on the
shady side of the agency building, and a young
Indian policeman suggested that I photograph

IN APACHE LAND 57

them. The moment, however, that I turned my
camera upon them they scattered like leaves
before the wind. My friend the policeman en-
deavored to persuade them to return, but to no
avail. They believed the camera lens an evil
eye. A half mile below, however, at a trader's
store, three young women, dressed in their finest,
asked me to photograph them, and I did so.
Their request, of course, was by signs. The fear
of the camera, so noticeable among the older
women, was not generally shared by the younger
ones. Nor did the men as a rule object to be-
ing photographed. On the contrary, the younger
men were usually quite desirous of posing for
me.

Bill had exhibited so many indications of be-
coming leg weary that I had resolved to trade
him off at the first opportunity for a larger ani-
mal. With this in view I made some strenuous
endeavors at Fort Apache to effect a trade, ex-
patiating, with John's help, upon Billy's beauty
and accomplishments, but every would-be trader
laughed when he saw Bill, with hanging under
lip and pompadour bang and mane. No one
would consider a trade after one look at the
little beast. They seemed to consider the sug-
gestion a rare joke, though John and I with
serious faces resented their attitude, and John

58 SADDLE AND CAMP

told some of the scoffers that "the trouble with
them was they didn't know a real good cayuse
when they saw one, and they acted plumb

locoed."

However, a fine black-brown pony was offered
me at a reasonable price, and I purchased him.
He was a four-year-old and a little beauty, with
tail sweeping to the ground and a colt's face —
the most innocent face and expression I ever saw
upon a horse. He was apparently gentle as a
kitten and rubbed his head against me and tried
to put his nose in my pocket, when I looked him
over. "Shorty" was his name, and I felt very
proud of him. Shorty had traits that did not
show on the surface, but found expression later.

Fort Apache possessed more of the ordinary
brand of house flies than any place I ever was in.
They settled in clouds upon everything and one
could not avoid them. The post itself is about
as unattractive and dreary as a place can be,
forage was hard to get, and we were glad to
pack and saddle up on the second morning after
our arrival, and at seven o'clock rode out upon
the desert.

Theodore Roosevelt, Apache Indian Policeman.

Moulded into Fantastic Shapes by Ages of Erosion.

CHAPTER VI

PIGEONS AND BEAR

OUR trail led over a parched desert, sup-
porting only miniature sage brush and
greasewood. We had intended to visit a
remarkable salt spring to the southward, but
this would have consumed a day and carried us
into a region nude of forage for the horses.
Therefore it was decided to pass on and head
directly for Cedar Creek, eighteen miles from
Fort Apache, and the nearest available water.
Kelly's Butte and many other smaller but
picturesque buttes and formations peculiar to
the desert, as well as several striking peaks,
were passed, or stood out against the sky line
in the distance. The sun beat down upon the
naked sand in blinding, blistering intensity and
dust rose in dead clouds to choke us.

Billy, quite rested and apparently as fresh

59

60 SADDLE AND CAMP

and active as the day he began the journey,
seemed imbued with a new lease of life and
doubled energy. I rode Shorty, my new pony,
and we made such good speed that at twelve
o'clock the eighteen miles were behind us, and
we dismounted and unpacked at Cedar Creek,
under the shade of a large cottonwood tree. We
found the creek dry, but not far from our tree
a spring of clear, cold, refreshing water bubbled
out of the hot sand.

Several Indians were camped near-by, and
one of them, "General Jim Crook," came down
to our bivouac to pay his respects. General
Crook is a famous character among the older
Apaches. He was one of the Indian scouts
who acted in conjunction with our troops in the
years when the Apaches were restless, and on
active duty with the army, during the Geronimo
wars, was wounded in the Mexican Campaign.
Old Jim Crook is desperately poor now, and
though he gave the best of his life to the service
and was wounded in the performance of duty,
he receives no pension.

Normally the rainy season begins in Arizona,
with almost certain regularity, during the first
week of July, but thus far no welcome shower
had come to cool the parched sand since my de-
parture from Holbrook. This delay in the rains

PIGEONS AND BEAR 61

was responsible for unusually poor forage from
Cedar Creek onward. Not a blade of grass re-
lieved the sage brush here, and to our regret we
were compelled to tie the horses up unfed while
we cooked our own luncheon and rested for two
hours in the shade of the cottonwood.

We were scarcely through eating when black
clouds loomed up in the western sky and in an
incredibly short time a terrific thunder storm
was upon us. The lightning was sharp, the
thunder jarred the earth, and for an hour rain
fell in torrents. As suddenly as the storm came
it passed, every vestige of cloud dissolved, and
though the sun shone again with unabated
brilliancy, the atmosphere was cooled and the
afternoon balmy and delightful.

No water was to be had between Cedar Creek
and the Carrizo Canon, twelve miles beyond,
but here we found a murky, ill-smelling stream
coursing down between the canon walls. The
canon was bare of forage, and when the animals
and ourselves had slaked our thirst at the brook
we climbed to the farther rim, hobbled and
turned the horses loose to feed in sparse-grow-
ing grass, while we made our bivouac under
a scraggy cedar tree.

When we arose at daybreak all the horses save
Button were feeding quietly not far away, but

62 SADDLE AND CAMP

he was nowhere to be seen. An examination of
the tracks disclosed the fact that he had prob-
ably only tarried the previous night sufficiently
long for us to fall comfortably asleep, and then
without danger of detection had turned into the
canon and made off.

While John prepared breakfast I saddled
Shorty and tracked the runaway Button down
the slope and a mile to the eastward. His trail
showed plainly that he had kept steadily going,
never once halting for a moment to graze, and
that he had doubtless headed, by a short cut,
toward his old home at Taylor.

John, with long experience in trailing run-
away horses through the Arizona wilderness, had
often boasted to me that no horse had ever
escaped him. I therefore deemed it wise to re-
turn to camp for breakfast and let him take up
Button's trail and follow it down.

"I'll get him!" said John, as he rode away,
"if the Injuns don't find him first and hide
him from me."

Three hours later he appeared riding the de-
serter Button, with his own horse in lead.

''Where was he?" I asked.

"Plumb six miles away," said John. "When
he saw me coming he laid back his ears, flagged
me with his tail, and hit out for Taylor like a

PIGEONS AND BEAR 63

bat out of hell, and I had to ride like a drunk
Injun to catch him."

This was Button's last attempt to leave us.
John accredited him with a degree of intelli-
gence little short of human and insisted that he
had been waiting a long while for a favorable
opportunity to desert and that he "reckoned
Button had about decided we were a hard outfit
to shake."

John's horse, a young dapple gray, had be-
come leg weary and now developed unmistak-
able signs of giving out. He was in such bad
shape that upon leaving Carrizo Canon, John
saddled Shorty, while I rode Button, and we
permitted the poor, fagged animal to jog along
unburdened. The hard mountain trails that we
had traversed, together with rather long marches
and continuous work, had proved too much for
him, and in addition to general weariness he had
gone lame. He was a more finely bred animal
than either Button or Billy, but he did not
possess the toughness and vigor of the ponies
and was not nearly so good a forager as they.
Button was, if anything, in better shape than
when we left Taylor.

Large horses are not so well adapted to either
desert or mountain work as ponies, when they
are compelled to forage for themselves.

64 SADDLE AND CAMP

Cavalrymen at Fort Apache told me that when
they returned from hard practice marches in
the mountains, their fine big horses were pretty
certain to be fagged and jaded, while the native
ponies ridden by the Indian scouts that accom-
panied them returned to the post fresh and ac-
tive, though they performed just as much and
often more work than the cavalry horses, and
on these marches foraged their own living,
while the cavalry horses were well grained.

From the Carrizo our course was directed
over the Cibicue Mountains, in a northwesterly
direction. Here I saw the first of perhaps seven
or eight wild pigeons — the true passenger
pigeon — that I met with in this section of Ari-
zona. After a continuous march from early
morning we halted one mid-afternoon to make
camp some thirty yards from a spring on the
western slope of the Cibicue range. When all
was snug, our coffee made and bacon frying,
and we had seated ourselves for luncheon, John
exclaimed:

"Look there! Wild pigeons!"

Three birds had just alighted in a tall dead
tree close by the spring. The tree was void of
all foliage, the limbs bare, and the birds were in
excellent position to observe. With my binocu-
lars I took a position less than twenty yards

PIGEONS AND BEAR 65

from them and watched them for some time.
They were the true passenger-pigeon (Ecto-
pistes migratorius) . I have no doubt whatever
of this, for every possible opportunity was of-
fered for observation. Later on two occasions
I saw passenger-pigeons in this section, and John
told me that he had sometimes seen them when
riding range, in small flocks of four or five
birds.

This is in all probability the only region
where the wild pigeon, once so numerous, is to
be found to-day in the United States. So far as
North America is concerned, it is practically
an extinct species. The mourning dove, how-
ever, is quite plentiful throughout the West,
and these I saw in considerable numbers and
in many sections during my journey.

At noon one day we forded Cibicue Creek
and drew up at the ranch house and store of
Mr. Prime T. Coleman, Indian trader and old-
time cattleman. We had made the visit merely
to replenish our supply of provisions, but with-
in ten minutes after our arrival Coleman, with
true Western hospitality, had invited me to re-
main a day or two and accompany him on a
mountain lion hunt and I had accepted. Cole-
man, an enthusiastic hunter of mountain lions
and bears, had at the time, in conjunction with

66 SADDLE AND CAMP

James Hinton— reported the greatest bear
hunter in Arizona— a fine pack of trained dogs.
While I was a visitor at the ranch Hinton paid
us a visit, and he told me that not long before
on a single hunt, extending over a period of
one month, he had killed eighteen bears and
three mountain lions. He had no record of
how many of these animals he had destroyed
during his lifetime as a hunter.

The Cibicue Indians, and those living along
Oak Creek, have the reputation of being the
worst Apaches on the reservation, though Cole-
man assured me they are mere children. He
has lived his whole life among the Apaches,
and his experience has taught him that so long
as they are dealt with honestly, treated as hu-
man beings, left by themselves so far as condi-
tions will permit, and tulapai manufacture is
restrained, as at present, they will remain en-
tirely harmless and peaceable.

Like children they have a keen sense of jus-
tice and injustice. When they desire anything
that is denied them by the agent, they accept
the ruling as a child accepts the ruling of a par-
ent. But when anything is promised them, or
any agreement made with them, they expect
the promise or the agreement to be fulfilled lit-
erally. Mr. Coleman believed, in the light of

The Overflow of One of the Springs that Supply Tuba.

A Hopi Indian Pueblo,

PIGEONS AND BEAR 67

his lifelong experience, that so long as this pol-
icy is maintained, which is the policy of the
present exceptionally competent Indian agent,
troops are wholly unnecessary on the reserva-
tion and there will be no fear of the Apaches
committing depredations or going on the war
path. Not fear of the white man, but just and
honorable treatment of them by the white man,
will keep them contented with their lot.

Coleman reiterated what I had already
heard in reference to the harmful effect upon
the Indian of tulapai, the native liquor, men-
tioned elsewhere. While here I saw some chil-
dren whose mother was shot and killed a short
time before by their intoxicated father.

I made some purchases in Coleman's store,
and in change received a government check
made out in favor of an Indian who could not
write. It is required in cases of this kind that
the endorsement be made with the endorser's
"mark," witnessed by two signatures. This In-
dian had wet his thumb with ink and pressed it
upon the back of the check, as his endorsement
mark, which to my astonishment was witnessed
by no less famous personages than "Theodore
Roosevelt" and "Hoke Smith."

"Are these signatures genuine?" I asked.

"Oh, yes," answered Coleman. "Teddy

68 SADDLE AND CAMP

Roosevelt will be in to-morrow, and you'll
have an opportunity to meet him."

Sure enough Teddy came, bandanna hand-
kerchief around his neck and all. He was an
Apache Indian policeman. Another check was
shown me upon which the endorsement was
witnessed by Abraham Lincoln and Oliver
Cromwell, and still another which bore the
name of George Washington.

While here I visited with Coleman an In-
dian school where an official was engaged in
taking the census. A mass of Indians, men,
women and children, old and young, were gath-
ered about the building. In addition to a name,
each Indian has a letter and number by which
he is designated by the agent. For example,
the head of a family is known as A i, and the
various members of his family as A 2, A 3, A 4,
and so on. The head of another family would
accordingly be known as B 1, and the various
members of his family as B 2, B 3 or B 4.
Those who own stock brand it with their
number.

On the morning following my arrival at
Coleman's Logan Jaques, a young sheep ranch-
man, rode in from his camp to join us in our
hunt. Long before daylight Coleman, Jaques
and I were up. I was very ill from assimilat-

PIGEONS AND BEAR 69

ing too much alkali — "alkalied," as the people
say here — and could eat no breakfast, but was
determined not to miss the hunt, which I had
looked forward to with much anticipation. At
dawn we were of! with the pack, all mounted
upon strong, able horses from Coleman's ranch.

We rode several miles through a compara-
tively level stretch of barren country, then en-
tered a rough, thinly wooded region broken by
gulches and canons, up and down over trailless
hills, until the dogs at length took a scent in
a rocky canon and were off.

We followed at a good pace, keeping well
within hearing of the working dogs. "It's a
bear," said Coleman at length, and sure enough
on the side of a canon opposite us, high up
near its rim, we presently saw the animal for a
moment — a big brown fellow. Coleman and
Jaques each took long range shots with their
30-30's, but missed.

Then the chase began in earnest. At a
lope we pushed our horses through thick brush,
over rocks, up and down canon sides, where I
doubted the ability of the animals to keep their
footing, until, at last, scratched and bruised
from contact with brush and rocks, we heard
the dogs baying, and knew they had treed the
bear,

70 SADDLE AND CAMP

We found the animal high up in a pine tree.
One shot from my rifle brought it down, but
the bullet had hit it too far back of the ear,
and it charged the dogs with considerable vi-
tality. I approached and photographed it, then
put a bullet in its head. I have called this a
brown bear, but it was of the black bear species.

It was a disappointment that we had not
found a mountain lion, the game that we had
set out for. But our animals were too weary
to continue the hunt that day, and our limited
time forced me to continue my journey north-
ward without the coveted lion.

John had traded his worn-out horse to Cole-
man for a white fellow very much scarred on
shoulder and flank with a heart-shaped brand
which won him the name "Heart." With this
improvement in our outfit and our horses
rested and in good condition, we resumed the
trail leading up to the Mogollon Mesa.

CHAPTER VII

OVER THE MOGOLLON MESA

LOGAN JAQUES, the young sheep
ranchman, who had several herds of
sheep pasturing in what is known as
Grasshopper Valley, some eighteen or twenty
miles from Coleman's ranch on the Cibicue,
invited us to spend a night at one of his camps
as we passed en route to the old Verde trail.
His herds were in charge of Mexican shep-
herds, for in Arizona and New Mexico only
Mexicans are employed in the work of herding
sheep, though farther north, in Idaho, Wyo-
ming, and throughout the Northwest generally,
a Mexican shepherd is a rarity.

In Arizona and New Mexico the shepherds
live in tents and transport their camp equip-
ment by pack train, using burros for pack ani-
mals and the native cayuse for the saddle,

71

72 SADDLE AND CAMP

Northward the shepherds camp in a canvas-
covered wagon, fitted up as a snug kitchen and
sleeping room, with a bunk amply wide for two
in the rear, a small cook stove forward, a fold-
ing table that may be removed when not in
use, and ample storage room for provisions and
personal belongings. It is a comfortable habi-
tation even in severe weather.

Individual sheep ranchers usually own sev-
eral flocks, and each flock, numbering from sev-
eral hundred to five or six thousand animals,
is placed under the care of two and sometimes
three men. It is the custom when grazing
flocks upon the public range to confine them to
a certain area until it is denuded of all grass
and browse. The sheep accomplish this very
completely and thoroughly in a few days and
are then moved on by the shepherds to another
area.

We had hoped to leave Grasshopper Valley
behind us before our night halt was made, but
a late start brought us at nightfall near Jaques's
last camp, and here we drew in and bivouacked
alongside the tent of the Mexican shepherds,
and accepted their invitation to a supper of
mutton and a breakfast of chili con came.

There were two men allotted to this camp — a
cook and a herder. As day faded into twilight

OVER THE MOGOLLON MESA 73

the latter massed his flock close to the tent, ate
his supper, spread his bed in the open not far
from John and. me, and presently to the
tune of bleating sheep and snoring shepherds
we fell into light slumber. I had not slept
long when a revolver shot roused me. It was
followed by several other shots in quick suc-
cession. For an instant I believed the sheep
men were engaged in a gun fight, then that the
shepherd was firing at some animal attacking
the sheep, but finally ascertained that the shoot-
ing was done to turn the flock farther out, for
the animals had crowded almost on top of us.

Our trail from the Cibicue to Grasshopper
Valley carried us over a rolling country,
sparsely wooded. Here we crossed Oak Creek
Canon, where the most secluded of the Apaches
live. Many of this branch of this tribe, John
assured me, have never reported at the Indian
office, and he also assured me that they were
the only Indians in the country he would hesi-
tate to travel among alone. Even they, I ven-
ture to say, are peaceable enough when not un-
der the influence of tulapai. In nearly every
instance where Apaches have committed mur-
der in recent years, the awakening of the homi-
cidal instinct has been directly traceable to
tulapai.

74 SADDLE AND CAMP

Water was scarce, muddy, and unpalatable.
Even Grasshopper Spring, locally famous for
its cold sparkling water, had been reduced by
the unusually dry season, to a mud hole. It
was a delightful sound, therefore, when we
turned out of the valley and into a canon and
heard the roar of a brook, pouring down over
its rocky bed from the heights above, and discov-
ered a stream of clear cold water. Good water
was a luxury, and this was the first good water
that we had found since leaving the spring at
Cedar Creek.

Our trail, which followed the brook up the
canon, presently faded and at length disap-
peared entirely among the underbrush. Here
began the ascent of the Mogollon Mesa. The
mountainside rose at a fearful angle, and at
several points our advance seemed cut off by
perpendicular cliffs, but at length slopes were
negotiated, cliffs circumvented, and the gentle
rise to the summit attained.

Shorty was my saddle horse on this occasion.
I was leading him, and when we reached the
first level spot he began bucking in the most
approved fashion as a decided protest against
further climbing. He succeeded in shedding
saddle-bags, camera, and everything not tightly
fastened to the saddle. After purchasing

A Navajo Blanket Weaver and Her Loom.

A Navajo Indian Policeman.

OVER THE MOGOLLON MESA 75

Shorty I had been told that he once had a repu-
tation as a bucker. The first "buster" that
mounted him after he was taken wild from the
range was thrown and nearly killed and another
was unceremoniously dismounted before he fi-
nally succeeded in "staying with" Shorty. But
with me he had been gentleness itself, until
now, save on one occasion when we met some
Indians whose appearance he did not approve
of and he made an attempt to bolt, but I had
felt he was entirely justified in his desire to
avoid those particular Indians.

We were now on the summit of the Mogol-
lon Mesa and our ascent had carried us into
a great pine forest. Now and again wide views
of desert, mountain, and valley appeared to us
from cliffs or bared eminences. Old Baldy and
the White Mountains towered in the distance
in majestic, rugged splendor and seemed higher
than any mountains I had ever seen. Sombrero
Butte stood out against the southern sky, a
striking landmark, and before us lay an expanse
of marvelously blended colors — red, green,
white, purple, gray — a mighty, shimmering
ocean of light and shadow.

Our course — for a time we followed no defi-
nite trail — carried us over undulating upper
ridges and across ravines and gulches. Deer

76 SADDLE AND CAMP

tracks were everywhere and many wild turkeys
were seen. Water was the one thing lacking
to make the region an ideal wilderness. Our
canteen, which had been lost at Fort Apache,
was sorely missed. One should never travel in
Arizona without a canteen. Night camps were
made by the side of muck holes, generally not
above thirty yards in width, which John called
"lakes." The water in these was thick with
decayed vegetable matter and sometimes so bad
that the horses scarcely sipped it. One of them
was so vile that the animals refused to drink
from it at all, though they had had no water
for several hours. We utilized it for coffee,
however, for one may feel perfectly safe in
drinking contaminated water after it has been
boiled.

We made diligent search for Blue Lake, a
pool famous in the region, but failed to find it,
though John had visited it once several years
before. He described it as filling a circular de-
pression, approximately three hundred feet in
diameter and probably an ancient crater. Its
waters are said to be blue and transparent and
of great depth. A party of cowboys once tied
two lasso ropes end to end and with a heavy
stone to weight the line attempted to sound the
depth, but failed to find bottom.

OVER THE MOGOLLON MESA 77

The Verde Trail was formerly the military
road connecting Fort Apache and Camp
Verde, over which stores were hauled from the
former to the latter post. After the abandon-
ment of Camp Verde the trail fell into disuse.
We turned into it near the place where Blue
Lake was supposed to be and followed it west-
ward for many miles. Innumerable aspen
trees along the old trail bear names and dates
cut in the bark by soldiers who traversed
it in the days when it was a military road.
Some of these bear the regiment number and
troop of the soldier that cut them. Dates went
back into the early 70's, and I believe one or
two as early as 1869.

Desire for water led us to deviate once and
descend a steep, rocky road which dropped to
the head of Canon Creek, directly above the
point where the canon "boxes" with perpen-
dicular walls on either side several hundred
feet high. Suddenly, as we descended, a beau-
tiful green basin, enclosed on all sides by pre-
cipitous mountains, opened before us, and pres-
ently we came to the clear, fine waters of Canon
Creek, pouring down over a rocky bed to
course through the creek's picturesque canon,
later to join Salt River.

Here we found Ramer's cattle ranch — lo-

78 SADDLE AND CAMP

cally known as the "O W outfit" — said to be
the best kept ranch in Arizona. There is a
log cook and bunkhouse and a log office, from
which Mr. Ramer manages his business and
where he has his sleeping quarters. He was
not there at the time, but the foreman invited
us to turn our horses loose in a pasture while
we had dinner. The ranch folk had eaten, but
the cook set the table and prepared another
dinner for us.

This visit to Ramer's ranch left with me
one of the very pleasant memories of Arizona
travel — the green hollow among towering pine-
clad mountains, the roaring creek, singing
birds, and the unstinted hospitality of the ranch
folk.

Our last camp along the Verde Trail, at the
head of Chevion's Canon, was made memorable
by the most terrific electric storm I have ever
experienced. We were sleeping in the open
when the first rumblings of heavy thunder
roused us. The night was black as ink and rain
was imminent. We lighted a pitch-pine torch,
and in ten minutes our tent was stretched be-
tween two small black-jack pines and our things
snug under cover. The rain fell in torrents,
the thunder roared and reverberated down the
canon in quick succession of terrific and ter-

OVER THE MOGOLLON MESA 79

rible crashes that set the earth a-tremble, and
the lightning flashed with a blinding brilliancy
beyond description.

John and I both felt electric thrills on sev-
eral occasions, but we had no fear, for we had
taken the precaution to select low trees under
which to pitch the tent. The higher trees in
this region are frequently struck by lightning.
During the day's ride I had noted many bear-
ing marks of lightning, and at one point four
within as many rods. In every case, however,
it was the tall yellow pine that suffered.

Like the White Mountain region, the Mo-
gollon Mesa once held herds of elk, but the
last of them were killed many years ago.
There is no reason why elk should not thrive
here now, though the ranges would be less ex-
tended than in the White Mountains. How-
ever, the Mogollon Mesa could well support
some good-sized herds.

This is one of the best deer and turkey coun-
tries that I have ever seen. Deer signs were
exceedingly numerous. I was informed that
bear, too, were fairly plentiful, though per-
sonally I saw but few signs of them. As was to
be expected where deer and turkeys are plenti-
ful, jaguars and cats are also quite too nu-
merous.

80 SADDLE AND CAMP

We continued on the Verde trail for a few
miles west of Chevion's Canon, then turned
from it in a northerly course toward Winslow
and presently began to drop to lower altitudes,
leaving behind us the tall pines, the aspens,
balsam fir, spruce, and flowering juniper.

Another terrific thunderstorm and deluge of
rain overtook us as we were passing the locally
famous Hart and Campbell ranch, a sheep
ranch upon which it is said at least three men
began the accumulation of wealth which made
of them multi-millionaires. We turned under
the cover of a friendly shed to await the passing
of the storm and a man connected with the
ranch joined us.

In discussing the menace of hydrophobia
skunks with this ranchman, he informed us that
six weeks earlier a homesteader, sleeping on
the floor of the cookhouse with open door, was
bitten on the head by one of these animals.
Some time later while in Winslow he was at-
tacked by rabies and died in great agony. One
of the doctors attending the man was scratched
by him and was then in the Pasteur Institute in
Los Angeles, undergoing treatment.

Formerly it was believed that only a species
of small skunk inhabiting this region was given
to attacking men in their sleep, but the one that

OVER THE MOGOLLON MESA 81

wounded the homesteader was of the larger
species well known throughout the United
States. Another skunk, since the above occur-
rence, bit a collie dog on the ranch and the dog
developed rabies and died.

In much of the territory through which I
passed skunks are a real menace, not, I may
say, in the open wilderness, but in the vicinity
of old ranch buildings which they infest. I
heard of several cases — I should say at least a
dozen — where sleeping men had been attacked
by them and had later developed rabies and
died. The people bitten are almost invariably
poor sheep herders or homesteaders, unable to
pay their expenses to Chicago or Los Angeles,
the nearest points at which Pasteur Institutes
are now located, and even if they had the
money to meet these expenses they are usually
from three to four days' travel from the rail-
road when the accident occurs, which with two
or three days by train from the nearest railroad
station to the institute combines to make so long
a delay that treatment is generally ineffective.

So far as I know, the only regions in the
United States where skunks with rabies are
found are Arizona, New Mexico, and a section
of Texas. The many cases of death from them
of which I heard were all within a compara-

82 SADDLE AND CAMP

lively narrow area and in a thinly populated
region. Is it not within the province of the
government to take some steps to relieve the in-
habitants of this constant dread? A Pasteur
Institute established say in Albuquerque would
place treatment quite near enough to be avail-
able.

In this connection let it be said that Arizona
pays a bounty of ten dollars each upon bears
killed within the territory, and one dollar
bounty on skunks. No one will skin a skunk
for a dollar and go through the red tape neces-
sary to claim the bounty. The Territorial gov-
ernment has paid many dollars bounty on black
and brown bears, one of our noble game ani-
mals that does absolutely no harm in this moun-
tain region which it inhabits. Pennsylvania
and Michigan both protect their black bears.
Even the silver tip, at one time destructive to
stock, has been so reduced in numbers and is
so timid now-a-days and so rarely attacks ani-
mals, that bounty on it should be discontinued.
It would seem that the time has come when
we should extend protection to every spe-
cies of bear inhabiting the United States. Oth-
erwise they will, in the course of a very few
years, become extinct.

The rain area was limited and an hour's ride

OVER THE MOGOLLON MESA 83

beyond it brought us into a parched dry dis-
trict. We passed Necessity Brook some miles
before halting for the night, and when we did
halt finally could find only enough thick, red
muddy water in the hollow of a stone to make
our tea. There was none for the horses.

The ranchman had advised us to take a new
freighters' road to Winslow. He assured us
it was well watered and we decided to profit
by his advice, though John knew the old road
well and not the new one and had some hesi-
tancy about riding untried trails.

We had passed from pines to pinons and
stunted cedars, and finally into a treeless, sandy
desert supporting no other growth than sage
brush and greasewood, and inhabited only by
lizards, chameleons, rattlesnakes, and an occa-
sional rabbit. One old rattler buzzed his warn-
ing close to the trail and we dismounted and
killed him. John shot a cottontail for our din-
ner, dressed it, and tied it to the top of Billy's
pack, where, under the terrific heat of the sun,
it became jerked rabbit within two hours.

Mile after mile we traveled, and drier and
drier, if possible, grew the country. Even rab-
bits were no longer to be seen. Dust filled our
nostrils and our mouths were parched and filled
with grit. The horses had drunk nothing since

84 SADDLE AND CAMP

the previous noon and were evidently suffer-
ing from thirst even more than ourselves.

In the distance we could see the smoke from
locomotives at Winslow. It seemed very near,
but John assured me it was fully forty miles
away.

Between us and the Toltec Divide, which
shimmered through the heat waves to the west-
ward, lay Clear Creek, running down across
the desert to empty its waters into the Little
Colorado not far from Winslow. We knew it
was there, though nothing on the expanse of
sand and sage brush indicated its presence.

The horses showed such evidences of suffer-
ing and our own physical beings called so
loudly for water that we turned from our trail
in a short cut to the creek. At length we came
suddenly to the rim of a deep canon. This was
Clear Creek Canon, but nothing suggested its
presence until we were within a few yards of it.
It was simply a deep, crooked gash with per-
pendicular walls cut down into the sagebrush
desert. We peered into its depth, only to dis-
cover the bed of Clear Creek at its bottom dry
as ashes.

Then we turned back to the trail and pushed
on. Once a bunch of six antelopes scurried
away. At length we glimpsed cattle and knew

OVER THE MOGOLLON MESA 85

that water was near, and at five o'clock in the
evening came upon some hollow rocks holding
pools of half putrid, cow-defiled rainwater.
The horses drank and we drank and made our
camp.

It was past noon the following day when
we rode into Winslow, and a great relief it was
for the poor horses' sake, for since leaving
Ramer's Ranch they had eaten little. Our first
care was to place them in a convenient corral,
feed them well on rolled barley and good al-
falfa hay, and then seek quarters for ourselves.
We were to stay here several days to give the
animals ample time to recuperate and get in
condition to cross the three hundred miles of
desert lying between Winslow and Kanab,
Utah.

We registered at the Navajo Hotel, said to
be the best in town, excepting of course Har-
vey's Railroad Hotel. We were too fough
looking for the conventional guests at Harvey's.
Without coats, for instance, one is not admitted
to his dining room, though no question is raised
in connection with the lunch counter at the
station. The Navajo Hotel, however, had very
comfortable rooms, well cared for, and a bath-
room, and we were well content to stop there.
Several unique signs were posted here and

86 SADDLE AND CAMP

there throughout the house. One on the main
entrance door read, "Closed on account of wind.
Pass through the office and if the clerk objects,
kick him."

There was no dining room attached to the ho-
tel, and we took our meals at one of the Japan-
ese or Chinese restaurants. There are no other
restaurants in Winslow, save the Harvey
House. We did very well, for we had long
since passed the particular stage. John did
find some fault, however, when a steak was
served him with a spider as large as his thumb
nail, its legs nicely spread out, and a large
horse fly fried brown and greasy on top. He
said he could stand one at a time, but two on
one piece of steak was too much.

Winslow is said to be the liveliest town of
its size in Arizona. It has some two thousand
residents who are irrigated by eleven busy sa-
loons. The day after we arrived there a gun
fight took place in the Mexican quarter but no
one was seriously injured. The day we left
town the bartender in the Wigwam saloon had
a misunderstanding with the gentleman who
presided over the bar in the Mission saloon and
the former ceased his earthly activities. The
gentleman of the Mission saloon was too handy
with his gun.

OVER THE MOGOLLON MESA 87

I had the good fortune and the pleasure of
meeting here Mr. Chester Houck, the only liv-
ing ex-sheriff of Navajo County. It was the
custom in Navajo County until recently — it is
said to be no longer necessary — to choose for
the important office of sheriff some one of
known merits as a gun man. Commodore
Owens, previously mentioned, was a notable in-
stance of this, and Mr. Houck can manipulate
his six shooter with an ease and readiness that
rendered him exceptionally well qualified for
the position. However, as he told me, he had
to kill only one man while he was sheriff.

This happened some four or five years ago.
One of the saloons in Winslow had a gambling
layout. Two strangers held it up one night and
got away with a pretty good amount of cash.
Sheriff Houck pressed into service as deputy a
man named Pete and in company with Pete
traced the pair to Canon Diabolo and came
upon them in the open. The sheriff engaged
one, Pete the other, and a pretty gun fight be-
gan with the result that the sheriff's antagonist
was killed and Pete's badly wounded, while
Sheriff Houck had only a slight scratch from
a .45 bullet.

Some time later this same Pete had a mis-
understanding with a bartender in Winslow

88 SADDLE AND CAMP

and shot him dead. The sheriff arrested his old
partner, but did not lock him up. "I knew
he'd show up for the trial," the sheriff told me,
"and I wouldn't lock up a man that had stood
up in a fight with me. Here in Arizona men
don't run away, just because they may be
hung." Pete, it is needless to say, was on hand
on the day set for trial and got twenty years at
hard labor. He is now serving his sentence in
the Arizona penitentiary.

We had planned traveling, for a time at
least, with an outfit that had come up from the
Gila Valley, bound for Oregon. There were
two men, two women, and two children in
prairie schooners. Their crops had failed
them through dry weather and they were look-
ing for a new land of promise. They were not
quite ready to start, however, when we saddled
up "on Tuesday morning, and I never saw them
again.

Northward from Winslow, Arizona, to Ka-
nab, Utah, winds the old Mormon emigrant
trail — traversing a desolate sand-drifted desert,
with long reaches between the few water holes.
This old trail, for many years fallen into dis-
use and much of it obliterated by sand piled
by the wind into great drifts like snow, might
tell stories of hope, ambition, misery, tragedy,

OVER THE MOGOLLON MESA 89

and crime could its miles of burning desolation
but speak. Seven times John had traversed its
length, each time vowing that he would never
venture upon it again. The first time was as a
boy of eleven when his parents were emigrating
from Utah to Arizona; the last time, fourteen
years ago, with his young wife. He knew its
desolation intimately and he dreaded it as I,
who had never traveled its wastes, did not. I
was anxious, in fact, for the experience.

This is the land of the Navajo and the Hopi,
the pagans of the desert, the land of pictur-
esque buttes, of gorgeously colored cliffs and
pinnacles, of marvelous canons, of wonderful
mirages. Three hundred miles of this land,
repellant and fascinating, lay between us and
Kanab, when we rode out upon it at eleven
o'clock one August morning.

CHAPTER VIII

ACROSS THE DESERT

THE sun beat down upon us with scorch-
ing effect; the hot sand reflected back its
rays to dazzle the eyes; visible heat
waves shimmered and quivered over the dead
sea of sand and sage — a vast, billowing sea of
ever-changing opalescent tints, greens, purples,
and blues. To the west rose the rugged sum-
mits of the San Francisco peaks, to the north-
east the sky line was cut by Chimney Butte,
Castle Butte, the Moqui Buttes, and Pottery
Hill; between them and us was a low line of
gray clay and sand cliffs which mark the basin
where flows the Little Colorado.

Anticipating that the desert would offer poor
forage to the animals, we were packing two
hundred pounds of grain on Button. Bill car-
ried our camp equipment and provisions. John

90

ACROSS THE DESERT 91

rode his white horse, Heart, while I rode
Shorty. Shorty had behaved very well since
his escapade on the mountainside above Grass-
hopper Valley, but his rest at Winslow had re-
vived his sportive tendencies and inclined him
to do unseemly things. Several times, on slight
provocation, he jumped and reared, and once
when I drew my pocket handkerchief from my
hip pocket he began to buck.

Presently, however, he settled down to sober
plodding, a pretense of reformation that caught
me unawares. I had drawn him up to a walk,
while I lighted my pipe and then lifted my
foot from the stirrup to adjust the shoe lace.
That was all. What happened next came so
suddenly and unannounced that I never did
know how it came about. I only knew that I
was sitting in the sand, still smoking my pipe,
while Shorty circled around me, doing the
prettiest bucking act I have ever witnessed —
"hogging it," as the cowboys would express it.
I had experienced no shock, was uninjured,
and my only sensation was that of surprise and
an inclination to laugh at Shorty's maneuvers.
He bucked the rifle out of its boot and the
camera off the horn, and then, failing to dis-
lodge anything else, ran off to join some wild
horses a mile or so away.

92 SADDLE AND CAMP

John cantered after him, and the little rascal
made no effort to elude, but stopped and looked
at John in the most innocent manner, as though
he did not realize that he had been doing any-
thing undignified or out of the ordinary. He
exhibited no symptom of fright or fear and
when John returned with him rubbed his nose
against me in his most affectionate manner. I
remounted him and we proceeded as though
nothing extraordinary had occurred to disturb
our progress.

We traveled at a jog trot, and before one
o'clock a beautiful lake of clear water appeared
in the distance, apparently not more than two
miles ahead and to the southeast of some
broken ledges of rock. The lake was sur-
rounded by green fields that offered splendid
forage for the horses, and beautiful groves of
trees reached down to the lake's edge, which
the placid waters reflected like a mirror. The
appearance of a lake here came as a pleasant
surprise, for I had never heard before of its
existence. I suggested to John that it might be
well to make our midday halt in the shade of
one of the groves and let the horses graze for
an hour in the good green pastures.

"There's no lake ahead," said he. "I see
what you mean, and I've seen many, many

ACROSS THE DESERT 93

lakes and green fields when I've been travel-
ing through this country and my horses have
been plumb tired out and their tongues hang-
ing from thirst, and I've rode and rode for
'em, but never reached 'em. This is hell and
that's just one of the devil's ways of tantalizing
folks that are fools enough to come here.
There's nothing but sage brush and greasewood
and sand out there where we see water and
grass. The ledge of rocks is there all right,
though, and I was counting on stopping by 'em
for dinner. There's some shade under 'em.
I've nooned under 'em before."

And he was right. It was a mirage, the most
tantalizing mirage that can possibly appear to
one in this parched land. We halted under the
friendly rocks to feed the horses rolled barley
and to eat our own luncheon beneath the shade
of a great overhanging boulder and in an hour
were on our way again, to see more lakes and
more green fields which we never reached.

The nights always bring blessed relief from
the burning heat of day. With sunset the heat
waves give place to an atmosphere balmy and
deliciously cool, and when bedtime comes
warm blankets are not a burden.

And what sunsets! What blendings of color!
Not the glorious reds and highly brilliant col-

94 SADDLE AND CAMP

orings of the far North, but milder purples at
the horizon, quickly giving way to amber,
which shades off softly into a paler transpar-
ent yellow, finally to blend and fade into the
blue above. As darkness settles and the stars
appear with the wonderful sparkle of high al-
titude, definite forms melt into indefinite, buttes
stand out in somber outline, eroded rocks
are transformed into spectral, fantastic beings,
and one feels the witchery and the mystery of
the desert as one can never feel it under the
glare of open day.

Early in the morning we passed Leupp,
where the government maintains an Indian
school, and in mid-afternoon reached the In-
dian mission of Tolchaco. It had been our in-
tention to continue on the west bank of the Lit-
tle Colorado to the old emigrant ford known
as Wolf Crossing and there pass to the east-
ward, but the missionary at Tolchaco told us
that the old ford was quite impassable and ad-
vised us to take an Indian crossing opposite the
mission.

The Little Colorado is an exceedingly
treacherous stream. To-day it is down, to-
morrow a surging torrent, depending upon the
rains hundreds of miles above, at its source,
and its bed is largely quicksand. At this time

ACROSS THE DESERT 95

it was low, and acting upon the missionary's
advice we made the passage in safety, though I
barely escaped a ducking in the muddy cur-
rent through Shorty's unseemly plunging at a
critical point.

Thence, with no definite trail to follow, we
turned down along the east bank of the river,
marked by a straggling line of Cottonwood,
past pink and gray cliffs which rose to the east-
ward, to the old Wolf Crossing where the one-
time emigrant trail, now nearly obliterated by
great sand drifts, was again resumed.

A traveler through the Navajo country does
not long go unobserved by its dusky dwellers.
We had unpacked on a sandy promontory for
the night. Our horses were hobbled and
turned adrift, our supper cooked over a fire
which a single friendly stick of driftwood had
supplied, and we were sitting down to eat when
the silence was broken by the whoops and
shrieks of an approaching Indian. It was quite
dark at this time and we could see nothing be-
yond the circle illumined by our little blaze,
but presently the Indian rode up, reined his
pony to a stop within the fire glow, exclaimed
"Huh!" and sat silent and stiff as a statue.
John, who was dishing some stew, did not raise
his eyes, but remarked:

96 SADDLE AND CAMP

"Bill, you sound like you was plumb locoed.
Set in and have some grub."

The Indian still sat immovable and silent,
giving no intimation that he heard.

"He don't understand our lingo," said John.
"I'll try him with his own."

With two or three words of Indian from
John, which were quite unintelligible to me,
the Indian slid from his horse, squatted by the
fire, and proceeded to devour everything that
was offered him. Then he sat for half an hour
and smoked, and finally, having spoken less
than a dozen words, which were of course in
Navajo, remounted and silently disappeared.
Where he came from or whither he went we
did not know, but the following day he joined
us some miles beyond, apparently springing
out of the sand, and offered some blankets for
sale. I purchased a small one, and we left him,
sitting on his pony on the summit of a knoll,
gazing into the distance.

Thenceforward other Indians rode into our
night camps, sometimes whooping to announce
their approach, but usually appearing like ap-
paritions, seldom seen or heard until we dis-
covered them sitting bolt upright and silent on
their ponies, looking down at us in the fire-
light.

ACROSS THE DESERT 97

In the White Mountains, far to the south-
east, we had caught trout in the headwaters of
the Little Colorado River. There, fed by
banks of perpetual snow, it was a sparkling
crystal brook, rushing down over a rocky bed
through a great primeval forest of pine and
spruce and balsam fir. Here in the Navajo
desert it had been transformed into a sluggish
river thick with yellow mud, flowing heavily
northward in a winding course through banks
of drifted sand,' past pink-and-red and gray-
blue buttes of sandstone and limestone, molded
into fantastic shapes by ages of erosion. Now
and again, close to the river bank, were scat-
tered stunted cottonwood trees, struggling
bravely for existence, the only green break in
the expanse of wide, arid desert.

The old emigrant trail followed the general
course of the river, until trail and river finally
parted. By the general course of the river I
mean that while we were sometimes within a
few hundred yards of its banks, the larger
bends were cut off by short cuts, and when this
occurred we were often three or four miles to
the eastward of it, crossing gulches, dry ar-
royos, and low sand ridges and mesas.

We halted for a noonday rest at the Black
Frlls, a point where the river with a swift cur-

98 SADDLE AND CAMP

rent pours its yellow, mud-laden waters down
over lava beds. Here the red sandstone and
limestone are overspread with great rivers of
black lava, bits of petrified wood lie about,
above the surrounding desert vari-colored
buttes and mesas rise, the former cut by ero-
sion into picturesque and striking shapes.

On the summits of the mesas are scattered
ruins of ancient pueblos, built out of blocks of
lava and stone. At their foot in sand-filled
pockets in the lava beds are the burial grounds
of the people who built the ruined pueblos.
Very little has yet been done in the way of in-
vestigation and research among the ruins in the
vicinity of Black Falls, though it is believed
that long before the coming of the Spaniards
they were occupied by tribes of the Hopi In-
dian family, who deserted them and the Black
Falls country at a much earlier date to take up
their abode in a more hospitable region. Spec-
imens of pottery unearthed here, however, are
coarser and less finished in workmanship than
those found in ruined pueblos in other districts.
Such ruins, it may be said, are found north-
ward half way across Utah and far to the south-
ward. One of the most interesting of those
that have been investigated lies some three
miles from Winslow.

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ACROSS THE DESERT 99

At Black Falls we lunched beneath the un-
certain shade of a cottonwood tree close to the
river, while the horses grazed upon scant tufts
of desert grass nurtured by the river moisture.
This was a favorite camping ground of the
Mormon emigrants from Utah who took so
large a part in the settlement of Arizona, and
while we rested and smoked through the burn-
ing heat of midday, John told me of one of his
own experiences some twenty years before at
this very point. He was a young fellow then,
seventeen or eighteen years of age, and was
going home to Arizona from southern Utah,
where he had been engaged in carrying mail
on horseback between outlying wilderness
settlements. His outfit consisted of three horses.

At Kanab, Utah, he had fallen in with a
young man and his wife, emigrating to Arizona
in a covered prairie schooner, and thence to
Black Falls he kept their company. Here
they camped over night near the spot where we
were resting. All the horses were hobbled and
turned loose in the usual manner, the man and
wife retired for the night to their wagon, and
John rolled in his blankets under the sky and
was soon close wrapped in the sound and
dreamless sleep of youth.

At dawn he awakened, conscious that some-

100 SADDLE AND CAMP

thing had happened while he slept. He sprang
up and looked about him, to discover that all
the horses had disappeared. He roused the
others, and a short search disclosed the fact
that "rustlers" had stolen the animals. He and
his friends were marooned in the desert.

A consultation was held and it was decided
that while the others remained with the outfit
at Black Falls and awaited his return, John
should trail the horse thieves on foot to the
southward, and without delay he began his
weary tramp over the sand stretches. He
tracked them to the old Wolf's Crossing where
the trail crossed the Little Colorado. Here it
became evident that his efforts would prove
fruitless and, turning back, he reached Black
Falls the following evening to find the place
abandoned.

His friends had secured horses somewhere
and with the entire outfit had retreated toward
Moen Ave. He followed them and the next
day, his feet so swollen by the hot sand he could
hardly walk, overtook them. It proved that
some horsemen had come upon them at Black
Falls, and the emigrants, panic stricken, had
implored the men to take them back. They
were too frightened even to wait for John's
return, though they were aware he was with-

ACROSS THE DESERT 101

out food. What John said to them was never
recorded, but there is no doubt that he relieved
his pent-up feelings in the picturesque style of
an irritated frontiersman.

In the days when emigration here was at its
height, "rustling" was not uncommon. In fact,
even now we were duly warned at Winslow to
be on our guard against it. These rustlers were
not Indians, but white renegades who made
horse stealing a business in the desert country.

Beyond Black Falls the country is arid and
desolate in the extreme. We found the trail
buried under great drifts of sand, which for
long distances covered even greasewood and
sage. This condition makes traveling hard for
horse and tedious for rider. Almost invariably
an afternoon wind rises to drive the sand
against one's face with the sensation of pin-
pricks, and to fill one's eyes, but dies away with
the setting sun, as balmy evening displaces the
scorching day and cool and exhilarating night
settles down with its calm and deathlike quiet.

A day's march beyond the Black Falls we
halted near midday to permit our horses to
browse on bunch grass, and while thus engaged
a large herd of Navajo goats and sheep on their
way to the river and water were driven over a
knoll by a young Indian woman and boy. Af-

102 SADDLE AND CAMP

ter crossing the river at Tolchaco we had en-
countered several of these herds. The Nava-
jos are a pastoral people, and their flocks of
sheep and goats are their chief source of live-
lihood. The wool is manufactured by the
women into the famous Navajo blankets,
though the Indians are now selling large quan-
tities of wool to traders, and doubtless a few
years hence blanket making will be a lost art
among them. This was the last herd which we
met on our journey.

At the point where the trail leaves the Little
Colorado we found some pools, the water yel-
low with adobe dirt. Here our canteens were
filled and the horses were watered for the last
time before reaching the Tuba oasis. Not far
beyond this point the old emigrant trail joins
the mail road from Flagstaff to Tuba, and
thenceforward we found traveling much im-
proved. The junction of the trails is ninety
miles from Winslow and thirty miles from
Tuba. The latter is a government station and
Indian school, situated upon the mesa rising
above the Moen Copie Canon on the north side.

The scenery between the Little Colorado and
the Moen Copie is exceedingly picturesque.
Pink-and-gray cliffs cut the skyline with ser-
rated ridges, and from the higher points along

ACROSS THE DESERT 103

the trail one has magnificent views of the arid
desert with its rolling sand hills and buttes,
bounded on the southwest by the high and rug-
ged peaks of the San Francisco mountains.

At midforenoon the following day we crossed
the Moen Copie, the water resembling in smell
and appearance that of a city sewer. The
stream was turbulent, and a few feet below the
fording point tumbled over a fall with a roar.
I was riding Shorty, and he objected strongly
to entering the water, but finally, after some
plunging and rearing, answered to the spurs.
On the opposite side we mounted a bank and
had our first view of the green cornfields at
the foot of the mesa below Tuba, and one hour
later dismounted at the government farmer's
station, to enjoy the first drink of cool, clear
water we had had for several days.

This station is maintained by the govern-
ment, and is in charge of scientific farmers, who
are employed to instruct the Indians in agricul-
ture and irrigation. For ten miles below and
sixty miles above Tuba, springs gush out of the
cliffs on the north side of the Moen Copie
Canon, wThich, near Tuba for a short distance,
widens out into a basin varying from a quarter
to a half mile in width, and farming is made
possible in the limited area at the mouth of the

104 SADDLE AND CAMP

canon by water drawn from the springs to irri-
gate the land.

A half hour's ride from the farmer's station
up a trail cut in the steep cliff sides brought us
to Tuba itself.

This oasis, with its green orchards and gar-
dens, its lawns and rows of stately Lombardy
poplars, appeals to the traveler, set here in the
midst of desolation, as one of the most beauti-
ful spots on earth.

The place was formerly known as Tuba City,
and was originally settled by the Mormon elder
John D. Lee and his followers. Lee was the
leader of the band of Mormons and Indians that
attacked at Mountain Meadows, September
22, 1857, a caravan of emigrants, who were
crossing the Mormon country en route to Cali-
fornia. Men, women, and children — even lit-
tle children that would hardly have been old
enough to tell the story of what they saw —
were slaughtered indiscriminately and without
mercy. The story of this cold-blooded, utterly
heartless butchery is too horrible to describe.
After the massacre the horses and cattle belong-
ing to the emigrant caravan, as well as all else
of value, were taken possession of by the band
of murderers, who fled southward into the
desert, and for many years Lee hid himself

ACROSS THE DESERT 105

from government officers, using the Tuba City
oasis as his chief rendezvous. It was during the
period following the massacre that he estab-
lished Lee's Ferry across the Colorado River,
at the head of Marble Canon, and blazed the
southern trail over which John and I were
traveling.

There was a long-drawn-out controversy as
to the extent of the responsibility of the Mor-
mon church in the massacre. The church then
did and ever since has denied all connection
with it, and denies also that Lee, or those asso-
ciated with him, acted with the authority, con-
sent, or knowledge of the church officials. In
those days there were many adherents of the
Mormon church, however, who were fanatics
in a high degree, and possessed of a species of
religious frenzy that led them to the belief that
to kill a Gentile was to do the work of God and
to take forcible possession of a Gentile's prop-
erty and apply it to the work of the church
was to win special favor in the Lord's sight.

It was this same species of religious frenzy
which led to the massacre of St. Bartholomew's
Eve; to the sacrifice of our early martyrs; to
the putting to death of supposed witches; to all
the terrible deeds that have been committed in
the name of religion since the world began.

106 SADDLE AND CAMP

But religion passes through its periods of evo-
lution. The younger generation of Mormons
has risen above the fanaticism that swayed their
elders. They are good Americans, with as high
a sense of morality as one finds in other Chris-
tian denominations. They contemplate with
regret and horror the Mountain Meadows mas-
sacre and the many other bloody deeds of those
pioneer days and denounce unreservedly the
perpetrators of them.

A few years ago the government purchased
Tuba from the Mormon church for a consid-
eration, I was informed, of forty thousand dol-
lars, and erected the present magnificent
school buildings of red sandstone.

The firm of Babbit & Preston, who have a
concession to trade here with the Indians,
maintain a large store in a circular stone build-
ing. Mr. Preston of the firm lives on the prem-
ises and manages the business personally.
Many Indians were lounging about when we
drew up before the door and were welcomed by
Mr. Preston and a young man named Fleming,
his clerk and chief assistant. Mr. Preston is
an old-time frontiersman and Indian trader
and, like all men who have lived long on the
frontier and in seclusion, exceedingly hospit-
able. He opened his stables for our horses and

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invited us to dinner, where we met Mrs. Pres-
ton and spent some delightful hours. During
our conversation I asked Mr. Preston if he did
not find Tuba a charming place.

"No," said he, "it's right on the edge of
hell."

"You're wrong," broke in John; "it's right
in the center of it."

During the afternoon I strolled up to the
government buildings and fell in with a gen-
tleman who introduced himself as Dr. W. H.
Harrison, temporarily detailed here to minis-
ter to the health of the Indians. Dr. Harrison
and I became friends at once, and he and Mr.
George H. Kraus, financial clerk at the agency,
arranged for a room for John and myself in
one of the dormitories.

The doctor piloted me over the Tuba gar-
dens and up to the springs that supply the
buildings and irrigate the grounds. There are
two of these springs, one furnishing a sufficient
supply of water for the buildings has an over-
flow requiring two three-inch pipes to carry
the waste water, off. The other, known as the
Boiling Springs, a hundred yards distant from
the former, is even larger. This spring throws
its water up in a column nearly two feet high.
There is a theory that the water supplying these

108 SADDLE AND CAMP

springs, as well as all those along the Moen
Copie, is brought between strata of rock from
the San Juan River, some two hundred miles
to the northeast. The springs supplying Tuba
are situated on the very summit of the mesa —
the highest point in the vicinity.

We had intended resuming our journey after
a night's rest at Tuba, but upon learning from
Dr. Harrison that the first of the August rain
dances, an important religious ceremony of the
Hopi Indians, was to be held at a near-by
pueblo the following day, I determined to re-
main and witness it.

CHAPTER IX

IN THE LAND OF HOPI AND NAVAJO

THE Hopi pueblo or village, where the
rain dance, known as a kachina dance,
was in progress, lies two miles from
Tuba. Fleming volunteered to accompany me,
and in early forenoon we saddled our horses
and rode to the pueblo. Many Indians had
gathered to witness the ritualistic work, among
them a considerable sprinkling of Navajos, who
made no concealment of their amusement and
lost no opportunity to jeer at the ceremony of
their Hopi neighbors. Ponies were tethered
everywhere, and the settlement, a mass of mov-
ing color and unique costumes, bore the ap-
pearance of a gala day.

In the distance, as we approached the pueblo,
we heard the chant of the dancers and upon
mounting the pueblo walls were treated to a

109

no SADDLE AND CAMP

weird and uncanny spectacle. Below us two
long lines of dancers, wearing hideous masks,
some with bare arms and portions of the naked
body painted in yellow and black, keeping time
to their chant, were moving up and down the
enclosed street with the dance step peculiar to
Indians. One row was blanketed, the other
was not. The dancers wore anklets of tortoise
shells with dangling deer hoofs so arranged
that with each step the hoof struck the tortoise
shell with a loud tap-tap-tap. Alongside the
lines of dancers, and directing them, were un-
costumed old men. The masks, the painted
bodies, the kachina symbols, and the ceremony
were fantastic in the extreme.

Up and down the street, facing now one way,
now another, they danced, but always the same
dance in constant repetition and apparently
with no variation. This ceremony, I was in-
formed, was to be continued, with occasional
half-hour intermissions, for two days and two
nights, when the performers would be quite
exhausted through fasting, lack of sleep, and
practically incessant dancing and chanting.

The Hopi religion is mainly a worship of the
powers of nature. From Earth, the mother,
and the Sky God, the father, sprang man and
all living things. Mother Earth is believed to

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LAND OF HOPI AND NAVAJO ill

be infinite — she has existed always, she will
always continue to exist. From the Grand
Canon of the Colorado, the sipapu — the great
opening — man emerged; into the earth, by way
of the same great opening, the spirits of the
dead return to enjoy an eternal existence. What
the nature of this existence may be the Hopi
does not venture to inquire and concerns him-
self with it not the least. He has no concep-
tion of punishment hereafter. For him there
is no hell.

When a Hopi Indian dies the nearest relative
carries the body of the deceased to the grave
prepared for it, places it in a sitting posture
always facing the Grand Canon, erects a long
pole between the legs, locks the fingers of the
deceased around the pole, and fills the grave.
To the top of the pole, protruding above the
ground, one end of a string is fastened, while
the other end is stretched out in the direction
of the Grand Canon. It is believed that after
a lapse of four days the soul leaves the body,
climbs the pole, and with the string to guide
it goes to its eternal home in the Canon.

While definite nature powers, such as the
Sky God and Mother Earth, are the great gods
and goddesses of the universe, there are innu-
merable lesser personages to whom are ascribed

112 SADDLE AND CAMP

supernatural powers, not the least of whom are
clan ancestors. These are known as kachinas.
At the ceremonial dances masked and painted
men represent the kachina to whom appeal for
favor is made, or to whom ritualistic honor is
done.

To each kachina is ascribed certain indivi-
dual and distinctive powers and characteristics
and each is distinguished by a variety of sym-
bolic colors, numbering at least six. The cere-
mony which we witnessed was an appeal to the
kachinas holding power over the clouds to send
the autumn rains necessary to mature and ripen
the crops.

The several clans of which the tribe is com-
posed work their various rituals, either in the
seclusion of the kiva or in the open streets of
the village, in accordance with the demands of
each particular ritual. Some, but not all, of
those worked in the kiva are held in darkest
secrecy. No visitors, and only those of the clan
itself who are particularly qualified, are ever
permitted to be present at the performance of
these very sacred and secret rituals. I am
aware that some investigators claim to have
witnessed all, even the most sacred of them,
but these men have been deceived, or have de-
ceived themselves. There are certain rites they

LAND OF HOPI AND NAVAJO lis

most positively have never witnessed nor re-
corded.

Visitors are admitted to some of the rituals
worked in the kiva and to all of those in the
open street, such as that witnessed by Fleming
and me. It happened that we were the only
white men present at this ceremony, but not
the slightest restriction was offered us, and I
was permitted to enter the street itself and
photograph the performers at close range.

The Hopis are an agricultural people living
in pueblos, or permanent villages. Their chief
occupation is tilling the soil and raising maize,
which is their food staple, together with sec-
ondary crops of fruits and vegetables. They
are also skilled makers of ceremonial kilts,
sashes, and blankets, which are produced in
various weaves and are of durable quality.
These products of the loom, as well as embroid-
ery and the fine basketware for which they are
famous, show a well developed sense of the
artistic. Formerly their pottery was of a high
standard of workmanship and artistic merit,
but of late years has deteriorated, though even
yet the people of Haus turn out some excellent
pottery.

Hopitu-Shinumu, meaning "peaceful peo-
ple," is their own name for themselves. Hopi

114 SADDLE AND CAMP

is a contraction of Hopitu. Moki or Moqui,
the name by which they are popularly known,
means in the Hopi dialect "dead," though the
name as applied to them as a tribe is probably
of foreign origin and a contraction of some
word alien to their language. It may have ori-
ginated in a contraction of the Spanish word
Mojiganza, meaning mummery, masquerade.
The explorer Coronado while at Zuni in the
year 1540 first heard of the Hopi Indians and
sent Pedro de Tobar and Fray Juan de Padilla
into Tusayan to investigate them.

It was at this time that the Spaniards first
learned from the Hopis of the existence of the
Grand Canon of the Colorado, which plays so
considerable a part in their religious belief.
These and later Spaniards, visiting their vil-
lage, doubtless witnessed the ritualistic work of
some of the many clans, such as the kachina,
the snake and other public dances, and saw the
performers painted and masked enacting their
curious rites. It might well be that the Span-
iards characterized such performances as mum-
mery and masquerading.

The Hopi is devoted to his religion and is
forever worshiping in the kiva, or working rit-
uals in the open village streets. Whether
through natural instincts, or because of his re-

LAND OF HOPI AND NAVAJO 115

ligious teachings, he is peaceable, as his name
implies, honest, truthful to a degree, and in-
dustrious. Indeed a Hopi that steals is rare
and one that lies is ostracized. He never in-
vented an intoxicant and there are no oaths in
his language.

But he is a pagan and he clings to his pagan-
ism with the utmost tenacity. For many years
missionaries of various denominations have
worked assiduously among the Hopis and the
Navajos, but, though the missionaries are
treated with consideration, never has one Hopi
been truly converted to Christianity, nor has the
firm foundation of his old pagan faith been
shaken. One missionary near Tuba stated that
he had spent the best efforts of ten years of his
life among the Hopis and Navajos, but he
could not honestly say that his work had been
productive of a single convert.

To the unbiased observer it would seem that
the Hopis have no need of a new religion.
Christianity would in no way raise their moral
standard, and it is safe to say that even though
they were led to renounce their pagan beliefs
they would not accept a new faith, though like
other Indians they might outwardly profess to
do so; and robbed of faith in a religion that
holds them closely to a high standard of moral

116 SADDLE AND CAMP

living, and failing to accept at heart the new,
they would unfailingly fall into degeneracy,
for it is an axiom that when any people is
robbed of a religion that guides and holds to
upright living, that people falls into moral de-
generacy, and it may be said of our Indians
that when their faith is once shaken in the re-
ligion of their ancestors, it is the end of their
faith in any religion. Outwardly they may ac-
cept Christianity, but in their hearts they do
not. This is the basis of the decadence of the
North American Indian as a man, of his loss of
self-respect and his degeneracy. It is deplor-
able but it is true.

The Hopi is a monogamist and rarely does
one remain unmarried. Husband and wife are
true and devoted to one another and to their
children. I was unable upon diligent inquiry
to learn of any instance where husband and
wife had separated for any cause. Might it
not be well for Christians to take instruction
from Hopi Indians in moral conduct and the
matrimonial relationship? Their moral living,
pagans as they are, is certainly preferable to
the Sodom and Gomorrha condition of too
many of our Christian civilized communities.

Some Hopi and Navajo Indians are annually
sent away by the government to Eastern schools

LAND OF HOPI AND NAVAJO 117

to be educated, but invariably they return to
the old life and old superstitions — those of them
who do not die of tuberculosis, and a large per-
centage of those taken away do contract it.
One of these Indians educated in an Eastern
school lives in the Hopi village near Tuba. In
discussing the banishment of a missionary from
another Hopi village the year before, he re-
marked in all seriousness:

"The missionary attempted to stop our peo-
ple holding the rain dance. Without the dance
there would be no rain, the corn crop would be
a failure, and the people would starve. What
could they do but drive the missionary away?
They were quite right."

This Indian, in spite of his Eastern education
and Christian teaching, had never swerved from
his absolute faith in the kachinas and their
powers.

Though the Hopi and the Navajo Indians
live side by side, they belong to different lin-
guistic families and are quite dissimilar in
customs, habits of life, and religious beliefs.
The former belong to the Shoshonean; the lat-
ter, like the Apaches, to the great Athapascan
family. They differ also in physical appear-
ance, though the Navajo type is less definite
and pronounced than the Hopi. Indeed it may

118 SADDLE AND CAMP

be said there is no well-defined Navajo type
representative of the tribe as a whole. In gen-
eral, however, the Navajo is taller, his features
cleaner cut, and he is handsomer than the
Hopi.

This lack of definiteness in type is undoubt-
edly due to mixture of race. Anthropologists
who have studied their legends and traced their
migrations conclude that small, disconnected
groups or families, wandering into New Mex-
ico and Arizona, formed the nucleus of the
tribe. Some of these stocks were Athapascan,
but there were also accessions of Tanoan, Yu-
man, Shoshonean, Keresan, and Aryan stocks,
and finally numerous clans from the Pacific
coast, undoubtedly of the Athapascan family,
joined them and influenced their language to
such an extent that the conglomerate people,
now thoroughly welded into one, adopted an
Athapascan dialect. This mixture of Indian
races naturally resulted in a more or less in-
definite type, and though the Navajo, like the
Apache, speaks an Athapascan dialect, he bears
a much closer resemblance to the Pueblo In-
dian than to the Apache.

Navajo legends tell us that the gods created
the first clan, in Arizona, some five hundred
years ago. Previous inhabitants of the earth

LAND OF HOPI AND NAVAJO 119

had been destroyed by giants or demons. This
story of creation doubtless indicated the migra-
tion into Arizona of the nucleus clan. Dr. F.
W. Hodge, the noted American anthropolo-
gist, has shown that the Navajo legend of the
beginning of the tribe is substantially correct,
though he places the date at less than five hun-
dred years.

Before the close of the seventeenth century
the Navajos had grown into a powerful tribe
and developed warlike tendencies. Early set-
tlers in New Mexico and Arizona were con-
stantly harassed by them. Col. Alexander W.
Doniphon led an expedition against them in
1846 and concluded a treaty of peace with them
in the autumn of that year, but they very
quickly broke it and returned to the warpath.
In 1849 Col. John M. Washington led another
expedition against them and forced them into
the peace treaty of Canon de Chelly on Septem-
ber ninth of that year. Again they broke their
treaty, and in 1863 Kit Carson, with a consid-
erable force, moved against them, determined
to put an end to their wars. He reduced them
to the point of starvation by wholesale destruc-
tion of their sheep and finally succeeded in tak-
ing the greater part of the tribe prisoners to
Fort Sumner. The government held them in

120 SADDLE AND CAMP

captivity until 1867, when they were returned
to their original country and liberated, and
flocks of sheep were given them by the govern-
ment. They have never since gone upon the
warpath.

The tribe numbered 7,300 at the time they
were liberated. In 1900 they had increased to
upwards of 20,000, and in 1910 to approxi-
mately 35,000. This large increase in numbers
is undoubtedly due to the fact that they have
been permitted to remain in their original
country and to maintain their normal habits
and methods of life, in a wide and ample ter-
ritory. Their reservation, chiefly desert land,
lying at an average altitude of 6,000 feet above
the sea, has little or no attraction to the white
settler. It includes an area of 9,503,763 acres,
practically no part of which is adapted to agri-
culture. It offers, however, fair pasturage for
sheep and goats, in which animals the Navajos
are rich and from the sale of wool and blankets
enjoy a regular income, which enables them to
live comfortably and without privation.

It is said that in a raid upon an early Span-
ish settlement on the Rio Grande, they secured
their first flock of sheep. Pueblo women doubt-
less taught them the art of weaving blankets
from the wool, and thus they developed the

LAND OF HOFI AND NAVAJO 121

blanket for which they are celebrated; from
this beginning the Navajo became a pastoral
people.

They are true Bedouins in their habits, con-
stantly moving from place to place with their
flocks, living in hogans and defying civiliza-
tion. Some of them, where water is sufficiently
plentiful to irrigate small areas of land, raise
maize, fruit, and melons, but agriculture is sec-
ondary to sheep herding, and once their crops
are gathered they move and continue to move
until planting time comes again.

The Navajo is exceedingly fond of personal
adornment. He dresses, when he can afford it,
in velvet, and bedecks himself in ornaments of
turquoise and silver. Some of their silver-
smiths, working with the crudest implements,
fashion necklaces, bracelets, and other jewelry
of real artistic merit. Their pottery, however,
is of very indifferent quality, as is also their
basketware.

Like most of our North American Indians,
the Navajos are found to be talkative, joviil,
and good-natured on acquaintance, though
silent and apparently sullen in the presence of
strangers. They say that the supremest crea-
tion of the Great Spirit was the Navajo Indian;
the next lower the Paiute ; then the Hopi ; and,

122 SADDLE AND CAMP

lowest and meanest of all in the scale of human
creation, the white man. They are inveterate
gamblers, and at the same time very fond of
sports and games that call for physical prowess.
Their runners are famous for endurance and
the rapidity with which they can cover long
distances, and, possessing many ponies, both
sexes ride from earliest childhood.

They are an industrious, progressive people,
ever ready for employment that will yield
them remuneration. The women hold a high
social position in the tribe and are treated with
great consideration. Descent is on the mother's
side, and a son belongs to his mother's, not his
father's, clan. When he marries he must
choose a wife from another clan than his own.

Recent investigations prove the Navajo a
deeply religious people. They possess a wealth
of myths and legends. Their religious ritual
embraces a vast number of prayers. Their
musical compositions bear a strong resemblance
to our own. The many divinities of the Navajo
are principally animal and nature gods, of
whom the chief is the Goddess Estsanatlehi
(woman who changes). This goddess doubt-
less represents Nature, blooming forth in
beauty in spring, fading in autumn, withering
in winter, to burst forth with new life and

LAND OF HOPI AND NAVAJO 123

beauty again with each return of spring — never
dying, like mankind, but passing from youth
to old age to rejuvenate herself and live over
again her life, year after year, into infinity.

Religious ceremonies are held at irregular
intervals, the prime incentive of all these cere-
monies being to heal the sick. Their intricate
rituals usually require nine days in perform-
ance, and sachems or priests, personators of
gods, are called upon to repeat a vast number
of prayers, interspersed with songs. All must
be done with absolute exactness, and prepara-
tion for the work calls for all but superhuman
memories on the part of the performers. The
medicine lodge and the sweat house are used,
with paraphernalia of ceremonial rugs, baskets,
medicine tubes, and costumes.

One of the most remarkable features of these
ceremonies is the wonderful sand paintings, ex-
ecuted by the artist priests with colored sand,
representing mythical beings or occurrences.
There is no doubt that the sand painting por-
tion of the Navajo rituals was drawn from sim-
ilar paintings and work of the Pueblo Indians
and has been modified by the Navajo to suit the
requirements of his religion. Gaming, horse
racing, and foot racing are held in conjunction
with the nine-day religious ceremonies.

124 SADDLE AND CAME

Unlike the Hopi, the Navajo is exceedingly
superstitious about handling dead bodies. He
believes that the evil spirit that kills a person
hovers about the hogan, or lodge, awaiting
other victims, and a hogan in which a death
occurs is never again occupied. Navajo hogans
are always built with the entrance facing the
east, and when a death takes place in one of
them another opening is invariably made in
the north side. Therefore, when one sees a
hogan with an opening to the north, one may be
certain that some one has died in it and that it
has been abandoned.

Thus the Navajos live the free, pastoral, no-
madic life for which nature has designed them,
with an ample reservation over which to range.
They are industrious and progressive, enjoying
the good health insured them by a free, wild
life in the region to which they are acclimated.
This is why they are increasing in numbers.
They are industrious and progressive because
they have a religious faith that holds them to a
high standard of morality and permits them to
maintain their self-respect.

Our visit at Tuba was all too short, and with
regret we turned our back upon this charming
oasis, and its interesting people, to renew our
trail over the desert to Utah and the north.

LAND OF HOPI AND NAVAJO 185

Note. — In compiling the material in this chapter relative to the
Hopi and Navajo Indians, I have drawn largely upon the reports of
such noted anthropologists as Dr. F. W. Hodge, Dr. Washington Mat-
thews, and James Stevenson, and upon the publications of the American
Bureau of Ethnology, and have endeavored to verify by undisputed
authority all of my personal observations and investigations made upon
the ground. — D. W.

CHAPTER X

GOOD-BYE TO ARIZONA

TEN miles northwest of Tuba is Willow
Spring. Between Tuba and Willow
Spring is Lee's Ranch, the former home
of the renegade Lee, and just beyond is Moen
Ave. At all of these places springs gush out
of the cliffs. A missionary resides at Lee's
Ranch, and Navajo Indians have small, poorly
cared for gardens at Moen Ave. Willow
Spring is the last of the series of oases border-
ing upon Tuba and the Moen Copie in the
northerly course that we were to follow. Be-
yond are the Cottonwood tanks, McClellan
tanks, and Limestone tanks, cavities in rocks at
the foot of canons that catch and hold rain
water. Sometimes after long dry periods some
or all of these tanks are empty, as water evap-
orates quickly here. Always the water to be
found in them is stale.

126

Alongside the Lines of Dancers and Directing Them were Uncostumed Old Men.

Vermilion Cliffs,

GOOD-BYE TO ARIZONA 127

Fifty miles beyond Willow Spring is Bitter
Spring, the first dependable water, but no one
ever drinks it unless driven to do so by extrem-
ity, and even then in small quantities, for it is
rank with ill-tasting minerals and contains a
percentage of poison. Ten miles beyond Bitter
Spring, however, Navajo Spring, pure and
cold, bubbles out of a canon in the Echo Cliffs,
and ten miles beyond Navajo Spring is Lee's
Ferry on the Colorado River.

We wound down the trail that leads from the
mesa to the lower level, passed Lee's Ranch and
Moen Ave and at midforenoon reached Wil-
low Spring, watered our horses, filled our can-
teens, and drank deeply ourselves, for we real-
ized that this was the last good water we were
to have until we reached Navajo Springs.
Then we turned into the trail leading north-
ward over the desert, following the red-and-
pink walls of Echo cliffs, which rose on our
right a serrated ridge several hundred feet in
height, while to the left lay a mesa broken with
many canons. During the afternoon Cotton-
wood tanks were passed, a pile of stones by the
side of the main trail marking the by-trail
which led to the tanks a mile to the westward in
the mouth of a canon.

All the country was naked of vegetation,

128 SADDLE AND CAMP

save greasewood and sage brush. It was a sea-
son of excessive drought, and where normally
the traveler might expect to find pasturage for
his horses the sand reaches spread out quite
bare of nurturing browse. Scarcely a blade of
grass indeed was seen, until in mounting Cedar
Ridge a bit of fairly good browsing was en-
countered on the summit among the straggling,
stunted cedars which cover it. Here we turned
our famished animals loose to forage.

Our fire was scarce lighted when a young
Paiute buck rode up, dismounted, and in the
most matter-of-course way squatted by the fire
to await a share of the supper John was cook-
ing. When he had eaten his fill he asked for
tobacco, as though it were his right. We sup-
plied his needs and he sat with us and smoked
until dusk. He spoke very good English, and
before mounting his pony to gallop away, re-
marked:

"Me plenty tobacco; me money; grub plenty;
no poor Indian. White man always give In-
dian eat; smoke."

He was proud and wished us to understand
that he was in no sense a beggar, but a visitor.

Usually the Indians met with by the traveler
along this desert trail are Navajos, with an oc-
casional Paiute north of Tuba. They are not

GOOD-BYE TO ARIZONA 129

evil-disposed toward the traveler, and their vis-
its to travelers' camps are prompted by a natu-
ral curiosity to see the white man and the white
man's outfit, and occasionally they come to bar-
ter. But the main object is always the com-
parative certainty of securing a square meal
and a smoke. Indians are ever ready to eat,
and tobacco is dear to their hearts.

Some writers who have visited the Navajo
country describe in highly colored, sensational,
and sometimes even blood-curdling terms the
Indians' descent upon their camps. They tell
of whooping, screeching Indians riding down
upon them with horses at a run and then watch-
ing them with suspicious and sinister looks; and
the traveler tells us how his party keeps vigil
through the night, hourly expecting to be at-
tacked by the blood-thirsty savages! He im-
presses upon us how very brave he is to ven-
ture into the territory of these wild Indians.

All this is nonsense. The Indian habitually
rides at a canter. Very often he whoops upon
approaching a camp, but this is to herald his
coming, that the camper may not be startled
by his unannounced arrival. He who feels even
the least tingle of fear or apprehension through
the Indian's visit is a timid creature indeed.
These "adventures" have a place with the

130 SADDLE AND CAMP

stories of travelers in our northern forests who
endeavor to impress their readers with the be-
lief that wild beasts line the trail, awaiting a
chance to devour the unwary, and that only
the untiring vigilance and superb bravery of
the traveler-writer saves him from a thousand
deaths. We have, let it be said, no wilderness
in the United States where one requires as
much as a revolver for protective purposes. The
Indians are quite harmless and there is but one
animal to be feared — the hydrophobic skunk
mentioned in another chapter.

Let me say also that danger on the desert
from rattlesnakes is largely illusory. The rat-
tler lurks in bunches of sage and greasewood,
and the traveler must practice a small amount
of ordinary caution, but that is all. At night
the snakes are harmless, for they lie quiet
after sundown when the cool of evening comes,
and it is quite unnecessary to spread hair lariats
or other obstacles around the camp to keep
them out. A rattlesnake bite is painful, but is
by no means likely to be fatal if simple treat-
ment is resorted to promptly. I have known
many men who have been bitten, but never one
who died from a rattlesnake bite. One soon
ceases to give the snakes a thought.

Beyond Cedar Ridge we visited both Mc-

Watering at McClellan's Tanks.

House Rock From Which House Rock Valley Takes Its Name.

GOOD-BYE TO ARIZONA 1S1

Clellan and Limestone tanks. Each lay a mile
or more to the left of our trail in canons cut-
ting the mesa. The government had enlarged
the former tank with cement walls, thus con-
siderably increasing its capacity. We halted at
both to water the horses, and at Limestone
tanks — several deep holes in the limestone
rocks, just as nature made them — where the
water was less stale than at McClellan tanks,
we replenished our canteens. The trails
branching to both from the main trail, as in the
case of Cottonwood tanks, were marked by
piles of stones.

The scenery here is exceedingly picturesque.
To the left lies the mesa broken by its numer-
ous canons; to the right rise the highly col-
ored Echo Cliffs ; to the north, beyond the level
stretch of desert, and at right angles to Echo
Cliffs, rise the equally rugged and highly col-
ored Vermilion Cliffs beyond Marble Canon
and the Colorado River, which they parallel.
Deep as the gash is, however, through which
the Colorado flows, no hint of its presence is
given the traveler as he looks away over the
great stretch of country to Vermilion Cliffs.
Indeed, one might ride almost to the very brink
of the canon before discovering it. Distances
are vast and deceiving. One may ride toward

188 SADDLE AND CAMP

an observed point that appears very near at
hand, but frequently hours of steady plodding
will be consumed before the point is reached.

Echo Cliffs finally turn sharply to the north-
east, to be lost in a great mass of red, yellow,
and gray peaks through which the Colorado
winds its way, to the point where the Vermilion
Cliffs on the north side of the river have their
beginning. Deep down among these peaks lies
Lee's Ferry. Bitter Spring is near the bend in
Echo Cliffs. We did not stop here, but did
halt at Navajo Springs, which were reached
early in the forenoon of the third day from
Tuba. Onward from Navajo Springs our
course was up and down across deep gulches,
until near midday we encountered the mass of
broken mountain peaks and the Colorado
River.

The old emigrant trail led around and
through a pass by a circuitous route to the
ferry, but a new and shorter trail has been cut
along the edge of a cliff and several hundred
feet above the river which washes the cliff's
base. This we followed, with rocks hanging
high above us and an almost perpendicular
drop to the water below. I was mounted on
Shorty and was exceedingly glad when we be-
gan our descent to the ferry, for I never knew

GOOD-BYE TO ARIZONA 133

when Shorty might take it into his fickle head
to rear or buck. However, the passage was
made in safety.

Here we found several tents and an extensive
placer mining plant in course of erection. The
sands at this point and for a hundred miles
above are rich with gold, but in such fine par-
ticles that heretofore it has not been found pos-
sible to wash it. The company establishing
the present plant, however, claim to have se-
cured machinery that will do the work profit-
ably.

The ferry, a small scow, is attached to a cable
stretched across the river, and is operated by
hand. It was in so dilapidated a condition,
and so dangerous at this time, that no charge
was made for taking passengers or outfits across,
and travelers accepting the passage did so at
their own risk. The approach was in very poor
condition and horses could be loaded only at
danger of broken legs. There was nothing to
do but attempt it, however, and two miners vol-
unteered to assist us. The horses were unsad-
dled and unpacked, our outfit loaded, and the
animals finally taken aboard without accident.

It will be remembered that this was a novel
experience for range horses, but all of them be-
haved exceedingly well save Shorty. While

134 SADDLE AND CAMP

John and the miners worked the ferry across I
held him by the nose. Once he lifted me clear
off my feet in an effort to rear and plunge, and
I thought for a moment both of us were going
overboard. But nothing of consequence hap-
pened, and at length we found ourselves and
outfit safely landed on the north bank of the
Colorado.

Lee's Ferry, as previously stated, was estab-
lished by the Mormon elder John D. Lee a lit-
tle way above the junction of the Paria with the
Colorado River. Not far from the ferry, on
the north side of the Colorado, is a small stone
house, built and once occupied by Lee and a
mile or so beyond, where the Paria Canon
widens, is an alluvial flat, embracing thirty or
forty acres, which Lee cleared and irrigated.
He built himself a ranch house here where he
lived in hiding, when not at Moen Ave or
Tuba, and here he was found with his four-
teenth wife, Emeline Vaughn, by Major J. W.
Powell, when Major Powell made his second
exploratory journey down the Colorado. Major
Powell describes the meeting with Lee as fol-
lows:

"In making a turn around the cliff, I was
surprised to see a little rude stone house, and
as I approached it a woman opened the door

GOOD-BYE TO ARIZONA 135

and hastily reappeared with a gun in her hand.
She was quickly followed by a man, also with
a gun. In a threatening attitude they came out
to meet me; being unarmed myself I spoke to
them by bidding them good-day and making
some pleasant remark, but not until I had
heard the woman say to the man, 'Don't shoot,
he's all right.' I entered into a conversation
with them and they invited me to eat melons,
which I did with a gusto, and we parted with
expressions of good will — for they seemed very
much interested in my explorations and came
down to the river to see me off."

Emeline Vaughn was an athlete and she told
Major Powell she could whip her "weight in
wildcats." Lee was later arrested and tried for
his part in the Mountain Meadows massacre,
and on March twenty-seventh, 1877, was exe~
cuted upon the scene of the massacre, near a
pile of stones which marks the grave of the
murdered emigrants. He was a descendant of
General Lee of Revolutionary fame, and a
blood relation of the Confederate General Rob-
ert E. Lee.

The ferry became the property of the Mor-
mon church and was held by the church until
the year 1910, when it was purchased by the
Grand Canon Cattle Company. Navajo

136 SADDLE AND CAMP

County, Arizona, has since arranged with the
cattle company to build and install a new and
safe boat and make the approaches safe, and
doubtless these improvements were completed a
few weeks after our passage.

What was John's surprise to find one of his
nieces, her husband, and her husband's brother
— Johnson by name — in charge of the property
in the interests of the cattle company. Our
welcome was royal. Watermelons and musk-
melons from the irrigated garden and apples
from the orchard were set before us, unex-
pected luxuries.

Our bed spread in the open, as usual, was,
however, the most uncomfortable of the trip,
for here in the depths of the canon the night
was very warm, mosquitoes were much too nu-
merous and active, and we were glad enough
the next morning to wind our way to the high
plain above the river.

Here we were on the Kaibab Plateau. The
scenery through this whole region is over-
powering in its grandeur. The highly colored
peaks and cliffs, rising in rugged confusion on
every side, the canons, and the sullen river be-
low combine to form one of nature's wonder
spots. One notable landmark, which we had
passed on the south of the Colorado River —

GOOD-BYE TO ARIZONA 137

the Shinumo Altar — stood out prominently on
the landscape and within our view for two days.
On the plains we followed for several days the
Vermilion Cliffs, plodding our way toward the
Buckskin Mountains to the westward, through
which the Colorado breaks to form that stu-
pendous work of nature, the Grand Canon,
and to the southwest the entrance of the great
gorge was plainly visible.

Fifteen miles from the ferry we crossed Soap
Creek. A tiny bit of water trickled down over
the sand and we dug a hole with our cups that
the horses might drink. The next water was at
Jacob's Pools, and twelve miles farther a vile
sink hole. Beyond that lay House Rock Spring
and finally Coyote Holes.

On the third day from Lee's Ferry we
crossed Jones' buffalo range in House Rock
Valley and saw one lone buffalo cow, which
watched us curiously from a distance. That
evening the Escalante Mountains in Utah
loomed ahead, grim and gray. On our right
the Vermilion Cliffs still held their place, and
very near now on our left lay the blue-gray
Buckskins. It was that night, near dark, that
we reached the Coyote Holes and camped near
them, for a day's march lay between them and
the next water.

138 SADDLE AND CAMP

Here we had the first rain since leaving the
Mogollon Mesa, far south of Winslow. All
night it poured. We did not pitch our tent,
but drew it over us and were very snug and
comfortable as we slept.

Another day carried us over the end of the
Buckskins with their scanty growth of scrubby
cedars and pinons, though farther southward
lies a great forest of pine. This region is in-
cluded within the Grand Canon Forest Re-
serve, and on a lonely, scrubby cedar in the
midst of sagebrush and far from timber an
active ranger with a sense of humor had posted
a warning against forest fires.

At four o'clock on Saturday afternoon, Au-
gust 13th, we rode into the little Mormon ham-
let of Johnson, on the edge of the desert, and
were welcomed and entertained for the night
by John's oldest sister, Mrs. Young, whom he
had not seen for many years. On Sunday we
continued to Kanab, fourteen miles below
Johnson, and here John met his mother. He
had not seen her in fourteen years, and she did
not recognize him when he presented himself
to her. The meeting was most affecting. John,
the frontiersman, could not repress his tears as
he took his old mother in his arms. She was a
sweet old lady, born in Cambridge, Mass., sev-

At Limestone Tanks We Replenished Our Canteens.

+3f

Kanab Dam, 300 Feet Long, c,o Feet High, Built by Ranchmen,
Holds Kanab's Prosperity.

GOOD-BYE TO ARIZONA 139

enty-eight years before, of an old New Eng-
land family.

"My oldest child," she said with pride, "is
a daughter sixty years old. John is my baby.
I have two hundred and three living descend-
ants, and one hundred and one great grand-
children. That isn't race suicide, is it?"

Kanab lies just north of the Arizona line, in
Kane County, Utah. In crossing the line I had
left Arizona behind me, and my trail thence
was to carry me through the entire length of
Utah, from its southern to its northern bound-
ary. In reaching this point we had traversed
a full eight hundred miles of Arizona mountain
and desert trails and passed through some of
the Territory's best game and fish country. In
the course of this journey I was impressed with
the fact that Arizona's wild game is receiving
scant attention and protection. The system of
wardenship appeared to me most inadequate.
Everywhere men spoke most unreservedly of
killing deer and antelope in and out of season,
and few had any realization of the necessity of
protecting these animals, or possessed any sense
of an obligation to respect the game laws. To
a certain extent this is perhaps a condition
bound to prevail in every sparsely settled
region, but the game regions of Arizona could

140 SADDLE AND CAMP

be, with small expense, ~nd most assuredly
should be, better patrolled and the game laws
more stringently enforced than at present.

This lack of protection has already resulted
in the extinction of elk in Arizona. Antelope,
once so numerous on the open plains, are near-
ing extinction. Mountain sheep, which, as in
the case of antelope, now have perpetual pro-
tection by law, are few in number and, like an-
telope, are killed in spite of law, because there
are too few and in some sections practically no
wardens to watch the hunters and enforce the
law.

In the nature of the case it is extremely dif-
ficult, I may say impossible, to estimate with
any degree of accuracy the amount of game in-
habiting so wide an area as that embraced
within the bounds of Arizona. There is a small
band of mountain sheep in the Four Peaks in
the southeast, probably some fifteen or twenty;
another small band of ten or perhaps fifteen on
Ord and Thomas Peaks, another band in Artil-
lery Peak in the west, with the larger bands in
the Grand Canon region. It has been claimed
that a small number inhabit the San Francisco
Peaks near Flagstaff.

I visited Flagstaff and interviewed hunters at
Winslow, who are familiar with these moun-

GOOD-BYE TO ARIZONA 141

tains, with the hope of verifying this, but the
reports were most indefinite and unsatisfactory.
I could find not one man who could say posi-
tively that he had seen so much as a single
sheep here in several years, and others declared
that there were none. This leads me to the re-
gretful conclusion that the last mountain sheep
to inhabit the San Francisco Peaks was killed
a few years since. As a result of this personal
observation, as well as information obtained
through correspondence, I am led to estimate
the number of mountain sheep in Arizona at
approximately four hundred, and it is certain
that this is an exceedingly liberal estimate.

In the White Mountains, in the Mogollon
Mesa, and in the Buckskin Mountains, as well
as elsewhere, there are still a great many deer,
but it would be quite useless even to attempt to
approximate their number. Bear, too, are still
fairly plentiful, though rarely now, it may be
said never, does one hear of their depredations
upon ranches, and the time has undoubtedly
come when some protection should be extended
to them. It is certain that the bounty on them
should be discontinued.

Predatory animals, chiefly jaguars and coy-
otes, are plentiful and are a large factor in the
destruction of game. The jaguar doubtless

112 SADDLE AND CAMP

plays a larger part than the huntsman's rifle in
diminishing and gradually but surely pushing
to extinction the small herds of mountain sheep
still left to Arizona.

Here at Kanab John and I were to part, he to
return to Pinedale, I to continue alone on the
trail to the northward.

CHAPTER XI

POPLAR TREES AND MORMON BEARDS

KANAB village lies in the center of a
small area irrigated by the waters of
Kanab Creek, which is dammed to make
a reservoir where the mountains above the set-
tlement close in to form the upper canon.
Stretching out below Kanab on either side of
the creek, or wash, as it is locally called, is a
desert area over which cattle roam and some-
how subsist and thrive upon exceedingly scant
pasturage. On the east of the creek the desert
reaches down to the forest covered region of
the Buckskin or Kaibab Plateau, the game
region, where jaguar, deer, and bear are plenti-
ful, while to the west of the creek lies the Ka-
nab Plateau. Not far below Kanab the creek
passes through a gorge which soon grows into
a mighty and picturesque canon, with walls of

143

144 SADDLE AND CAMP

vari-colored rock rising four thousand feet
above the creek, where it joins the Colorado
River in the Grand Canon.

A year before our visit the dam above Kanab
gave way and left the settlement without water,
either to irrigate its fields or for household
purposes. This was so great a calamity to the
settlement that for a time it was a question
with the people whether it would not be
cheaper for them to abandon Kanab and their
homes permanently than to rebuild the dam, a
course which would have meant to the ma-
jority a loss of their all. It was finally decided,
however, to rebuild. A spring was tapped in
the mountains and the water piped to the set-
tlement for household use. Until this was ac-
complished all water had to be hauled several
miles in barrels.

This provision of necessity made, the settlers
turned with the will of pioneers to the task of
constructing the dam. It was a tremendous
undertaking to build a sufficient and efficient
dam across the canon without the assistance of
machinery or modern apparatus, but every man
and boy capable of handling pick or shovel, and
every horse in the settlement, went to the work,
and at the end of a year this all but superhuman
task had been completed.

TREES AND MORMON BEARDS 145

During this period no gardens were planted
and no crops raised, for nothing will grow in
this arid region without the assistance of arti-
ficial irrigation. When we were in Kanab the
fields were dry and dead and the leaves on
orchard and shade trees withered and falling
like frost-killed leaves in late autumn.

The dam was finished, however, the water
behind it, forty feet deep, was almost high
enough to turn into the sluiceways that feed the
irrigation ditches, and it was expected that
within a week the fields would be watered, with
still an ample season to grow one crop of al-
falfa before winter set in. We found the peo-
ple, with deliverance from long drought at
hand, hopeful and jubilant and in high spirits,
over the prospects.

Kanab is the center of a stock region, but
much fruit of a high quality is grown in its
limited irrigated area. Westward, in Washing-
ton County, Utah, some two days' journey by
wagon trail from Kanab, lies the famous Dixie
fruit region, in the Rio Virgin Valley. The
valley there is sunken low between the moun-
tains and particularly adapted to fruit growing.
A variety of seedless raisin grape, peculiar to
Dixie, is unsurpassed in the world, and the na-
tives assert that California has never produced

• ■■ - -- ' - ■■■•-■ '■ ■—- — — ■■ ■- -.~"^.w-^.-yA-i^;V*n— <*.<■. ~^.4HMfa^:.*.-- ~»— ,

146 SADDLE AND CAMP

a pear or peach, or any fruit in fact, of higher
quality or flavor than the fruit of Dixie.

One feature of Kanab is its weekly news-
paper, the Lone Cedar. This is perhaps the
smallest newspaper published in the United
States. The editor, Mr. C. H. Townsend, sets
the type and prints it himself on a hand press,
and I understand that every family in Kanab
was on its subscription list. It is pungent, orig-
inal, and typically frontier. One or two para-
graphs quoted from the issue of August 20th,
1 9 10, will serve as illustrations of its aggressive
and characteristic style:

"Mr. Townson
"Please to not let us see Cora Button's name attacht to scandel
in the Lone Cedar once more

"her Freind

"Kanab Utah
look out for trouble if you

DO"
"Such rot as this shoved under an editor's door never has nor never
will gain the writer of it any consideration from a newspaper. The
Lone Cedar will not be intimidated out of publishing the Court News
by any such trash especially when we know who writes it. . . . No
one ever saw a word of scandal in the Lone Cedar. This is a newspaper
and the news will be printed regardless of threats of any character."

Another news item closes with the statement
that "Jonn R. Findlay sustained all the local
Forest officials without being shot."

And again, — "Altho the editor cannot go to

TREES AND MORMON BEARDS 147

the Sunday School Convention, we do the next
best thing possible, we send our wife."

The following advertisement appeared in the
same issue:

"NOTICE

"Before going to marry, fish or hunt call

on the County Clerk and

get your license, it saves trouble.

"License to marry

$ 2.50

Fish and Hunt, resident,

1.25

" " " non-resident

5.00

" " " Alien,

100.00"

Whether a special reduction was made to one
taking out at the same time licenses to fish,
hunt, and get married does not appear.

It was necessary that John have both a sad-
dle and a pack horse for his journey back to
Pinedale, and we made a trade by which
Shorty and Bill passed into his possession and
I acquired his horse Heart, retaining Button.
My purpose was to use the former, which was
the heavier animal, as my saddle horse and to
pack Button. It was with much regret that I
parted from the faithful Bill. He was not
much to look at, but he was all horse; and
Shorty, too, in spite of his tendency to buck, was
an affectionate little beast and had endeared
himself to me.

All of the animals were in excellent condi-

•- ~ - • *• """"' — >■— — -»«-

148 SADDLE AND CAMP

tion, though they had crossed eight hundred
miles of rugged mountain and desert trails;
thanks to John's experience and care, they had
come through with clean, unblemished backs.
Both Button and Bill had packed loads of never
less than one hundred and often of two hundred
pounds throughout the hot summer, and it was
due alone to John's skill in adjustment and his
constant watchfulness that they had accom-
plished it with never a resultant gall or sore.
Anyone who has packed animals under similar
conditions will understand that this was a
really remarkable performance.

Comrades of the trail, sleeping and eating
together, enjoying the same fire, and sharing
the same discomforts, become closely attached
to one another where they are congenial camp
companions. So it was with John and me, and
both of us were honestly sorry when we shook
hands and I rode away. Horses, too, no less
than men, form attachments on the trail, and
when we passed the corral in which Bill and
Shorty were confined, the two ran along the
fence and whinnied. Button answered them,
and only stolid old Heart, attending strictly to
his work, seemed not to care that he was parting
from them forever and gave them no heed as
he jogged out into the dusty canon trail.

TREES AND MORMON BEARDS 149

Mount Carmel, a small Mormon settlement
twenty miles north-northwest of Kanab, in one
of the valleys of the Rio Virgin, locally known
as Long Valley, was the next village upon my
route. The road to Mount Carmel carried me
past the new dam, which had so long held the
fortunes of Kanab in suspense. I should judge
its length, which is the canon's width here, to
be three hundred feet, and its height from the
creek bed fifty feet. Several hundred feet of
tunnel had been cut through solid rock. The
dam and works, constructed by hand and with-
out the aid of machinery, make it indeed a re-
markable monument to the perseverance of the
ranchmen who built it and an example of what
men may accomplish with bare hands under the
spur of necessity.

The canon road was very good to a point
where I turned from it to cross a mountain
ridge lying between Kanab Wash and the Rio
Virgin. Here soft, loose sand made progress
slow and tedious, and the horses, sinking deep
at every step, soon wearied. It was the most
tiresome stretch of trail encountered upon the
whole journey.

The scenery, as one ascends the ridge, is
varied and entrancing. To the eastward, be-
yond Kanab Canon, great white and pink cliffs

150 SADDLE AND CAMP

puncture the landscape, and beyond them lie
the Escalante Mountains, rugged and sere.
Above rise other white cliffs, visible through
stunted cedars. As I gained the summit I
passed very near these cliffs and still farther on
skirted what are locally known as the "Washed
Cliffs," the sides worn into smooth-scoured
ridges or waves.

Descending the west slope of the ridge, I was
treated to a magnificent view of the country to
the westward. The sun was setting in an efful-
gence of marvelous colors behind lofty, ser-
rated peaks, which rolled away toward Dixie.
Below, in shadow, lay the narrow valley of the
Rio Virgin, enclosed by high ramparts of rock,
which the sun still gilded. The river itself, a
silver thread, wound down the valley, to be lost
in a canon below, and the little village of
Mount Carmel lay snug and cozy, surrounded
by green alfalfa fields and gardens, in vivid
contrast to the gray sand stretch and somber,
towering cliffs.

The sun had set before the descent into the
valley was accomplished and the river forded,
and deep twilight had settled when I reached
a ranch at the outskirts of the hamlet. The
door of the little log ranchhouse stood open,
but the place was quite deserted save by a cat,

TREES AND MORMON BEARDS 151

dozing upon the doorstep. A fire in the stove
was not quite dead, and soiled dishes on a table
indicated that some one had recently eaten and
was probably not far away. My horses were
quite fagged with their climb over the sandy
ridge, and for a moment I was undecided
whether or not I should turn them into a near-
by corral, throw them hay from a stack of al-
falfa, and take possession of the house myself.
In Arizona I should have felt quite free to do
this, but as yet I had not learned the temper
of the people of southern Utah and I therefore
remounted and rode on. A little way up the
village street I met a horseman and inquired
of him:

"Can I get forage for my horses anywhere
here?"

"There's an outfit just ahead with a load of
hay. It's Bishop Sorenson. He'll fix you out,"
he answered. "Why didn't you stop at my
ranch?"

"Is that your ranch a mile back?"

"You bet."

"I stopped, but no one was home but the
cat."

"No, I'm bachin'. You should have gone in
and asked no questions. Cat wouldn't ha' said
a damn word. Sorry ye' didn't stop."

152 SADDLE AND CAMP

I thanked him and rode on to overtake the
Bishop.

Every Mormon settlement has its bishop.
He is the local head of the church, and not
only fills a position similar to that of pastor,
but collects timings and presides over the tem-
poral interests of the church in his district. He
is not a professional theologian, but a ranch-
man or business man.

Bishop Sorenson placed at my disposal a cor-
ral adjoining a barn, with hay and open stalls
for the horses, with no other restriction than
that my campfire should not be lighted within
the corral.

"Jake," he called to a tall, lank young fel-
low, "show the way over to the c'ral."

Jake, who had been an interested and curious
spectator, was not only willing but anxious
for the service. It gave him an opportunity to
satisfy his curiosity concerning me.

"Come fur?" he asked while I unpacked.

"Quite a distance."

"Prospectin'?"

"No."

"Ridin' range?"

'TNTo."

"Surveying"

"No, just riding through the country."

TREES AND MORMON BEARDS 153

"Come from St. George?"

"No, Kanab."

"Hain't been there long, I reckon. I pack
th' mail from there regular an' I never seen
ye."

"I reached there yesterday. I rode up
through Arizona, and I've come upwards of
eight hundred miles."

"Across th' Injun country?"

"Yes."

"What fer?"

"Oh, just for a ride."

He spat contemplatively and was silent
while I uncinched Button's pack saddle and re-
moved the blanket. Rubbing his hand down
the pony's round, smooth back, he asked:

"Where'd you get th' cayuse?"

"In Arizona."

"Pack him all th' way?"

"Rode or packed him every day."

"Plumb good packin'. He hain't got a
scratch. Don't look as though he done it, but
I reckon he did if you say so."

"I reckon so."

"Funny place just fer a ride, acrost th' Injun
country. Must ha' been plumb hot on th'
desert?"

"It was."

154 SADDLE AND CAMP,

"Was you alone all th' way?"

"No, a friend was with me, but he turned
back at Kanab."

Another spit, followed by another brief
silence.

"Ever wear chaps?" he inquired.

"No, I don't need them."

"Sheriff's lookin' fer two fellers that rustled
some cayuses over in Colorado. One of 'em
rides a buckskin an' wears new leather chaps.
I don't reckon you seen 'em?"

"No."

He stood around for a few moments, then
bade me good night and disappeared in the
darkness. I was very glad that I did not ride
a buckskin cayuse and possessed no chaps. Sev-
eral days later I met the sheriff up the trail and
had breakfast with him. He informed me that
one of the horse thieves had been caught in
Nevada and he hoped soon to have the other
"corralled."

The valley above Mount Carmel, well
watered and verdant, was a pleasing contrast
to the parched desert, with its stifling heat and
burning sand, so recently left behind. It was
good to drink the clear cold waters of the
springs and lave in the sparkling river pour-
ing down over a gravelly bed. The narrow

TREES AND MORMON BEARDS 155

valley is hemmed in by picturesque cliffs of
pink and white and gray formation, with rug-
ged, lofty mountains rising above and rolling
away to the eastward.

Stately Lombardy poplars line the streets of
the settlements and surround the ranchmen's
homes, a characteristic of all Mormon settle-
ments. Later I came instinctively to think of
the poplars as inverted beards of Mormon eld-
ers and to wonder whether the Mormons chose
this as their shade tree because it so resembled
the beards of the aforesaid elders, or whether
the elders so admired the trees, or so wished to
harmonize with their surroundings, that they
trimmed their beards to match the trees.

This whole region, from southwestern Utah
to the San Juan country, is said to contain
much iron and coal. The settlers assured me
that one might ride over the country for a
month and camp each night on coal — bitumin-
ous, cannel, and at some points anthracite. At
Glendale, one of the settlements of Long Val-
ley, coal was the exclusive fuel used, the house-
holders mining sufficient for their individual
needs. I fell in at Glendale with one Charles
Levanger, a Norwegian, who invited me to in-
spect his coal mine, some three or four hundred
yards from the center of the village. Here he

156 SADDLE AND CAMP

pointed out to me his tunnel, run at grade a
little way into the mountainside, cutting a vein
of what appeared to be fine, clean coal.

Like Levanger, a large proportion of the
Mormon settlers, not only in Long Valley but
throughout the Mormon country, are Scandi-
navians. Mormon proselyting among the Scan-
dinavians, and particularly the Danes, appears
most productive of results. Long Valley lies
at a high altitude, and the winters are severe,
with deep snows. This had led to the introduc-
tion of the ski by the Scandinavian settlers.
It is generally used in the region, not only as a
means of recreation, but as a necessity in winter
travel, and nearly every one is expert in its use.

Near the head of Long Valley, where the
Rio Virgin has its rise in many springs and
brooklets, the timbered region begins, with
pine and spruce forests spreading away over the
hills. Here, at an altitude of seven thousand
feet, I found the ranch of Fred S. Seaman, and
where a spring of ice-cold water pours out of
the hillside, just below the ranch house and
looking down over long green meadows, I
made a bivouac, not troubling to pitch a tent,
for the weather was clear and fine. When my
coffee was made and bacon sizzling in the pan,
Mr. Seaman joined me for a chat, and as a

TREES AND MORMON BEARDS 157

luxurious addition to my supper brought me
a dish of rich, sweet cream, the first I had seen
in many weeks.

Eighteen miles beyond Seaman's ranch lies
Hatch, the first settlement on the west fork of
the Sevier River. This I aimed to reach in
half a day. From the ranch there is a gradual
rise for several miles, before the descent is be-
gun. I had crossed the divide and was drop-
ping down the north slope when I met a horse-
man.

"How far is it to Hatch?" I inquired.

"Eight miles; maybe a little less," he an-
swered.

This was encouraging. Two or three miles
farther on I met another.

"How far to Hatch?" I asked.

"Plumb twelve miles, an' long ones," he ad-
vised, and my spirits fell.

Presently I met another, and still anxious to
learn what progress I was making, I again put
the question, "How far to Hatch?"

"Not more'n six miles."

I was again hopeful and expectant of soon
discovering Hatch, until at the end of another
two miles an individual insisted that Hatch was
still "ten good, long miles away." The expla-
nation of these various and discordant estimates

,■,-.■•

158 SADDLE AND CAMP

is that unmeasured distances are invariably
gauged by travelers in accordance with the
speed of their mounts. One riding a good
horse is certain to underestimate; one riding a
poor one as certain to overestimate.

At length Hatch, a small village chiefly of
log and adobe buildings, was reached, and in
due course Panguitch, the county seat and chief
town of Garfield County, which, together with
Hatch, lies in the Panguitch Valley. This, like
the upper end of Long Valley, is situated at
too high an altitude for successful fruit culture
— or at least no fruit has yet been successfully
grown here — and the settlers devote their at-
tention to livestock. It is well watered, spread-
ing out into wide and fertile fields green with
alfalfa.

South of Panguitch the country may be desig-
nated a log cabin region. Many of the cabins
of the first settlers still remain and are still oc-
cupied, though gradually, as prosperity comes,
the people are moving into small but more pre-
tentious homes. Panguitch has a population of
one thousand, and with its comfortable frame
and brick buildings, good stores, an ice-making
plant, and a really good little country hotel, the
people live with as much comfort and possess
as many of the conveniences of conventional

TREES AND MORMON BEARDS 159

life as do the people of nearly any country vil-
lage of its size in the East. It can no longer be
classed a frontier town, and upon riding into it
I left the frontier behind. Marysvale, two
days' journey to the northward, is the nearest
railway station, and from there regular freight-
ers with wagons drawn by four and occasionally
six horses haul merchandise to Panguitch,
which is the distributing point for Hatch and
the other settlements to the south.

The road to Marysvale winds down Pan-
guitch Valley through the beautiful canon of
the West Fork of the Sevier, where it breaks
out into Round Valley, and thence passes on
through Paiute Valley. It leads through the
village of Junction, the county seat of Paiute
County, so named because of the fact that it
stands at the junction of the two forks of the
Sevier, and thence the road crosses a ridge into
Marysvale. This is a mining town of some im-
portance and a terminus of a branch of the Rio
Grande and Western Railroad. Some Chicago
engineers were here, just returned from a sur-
vey of a route for a new railroad to the Grand
Canon in Arizona by way of the series of val-
leys through which I had ridden.

At the end of the lower valley, or "vale,"
the wagon road rises upon the mountains to

160 SADDLE AND CAMP

drop beyond into the beautiful Sevier Valley,
dotted with parks of green trees that mark
hamlets and villages, yellow, at this time, with
ripening grain fields, interspersed with bright
green alfalfa meadows, combining to form bril-
liant color effects and contrasts. To the west-
ward the railroad enters the valley through the
river canon.

Halfway down the northern slope of the
mountain I came upon a small ranch, on a nar-
row bench, its fields irrigated from a running
spring. Here I halted to water the horses and
drink from the spring myself. As I was about
to remount the ranchman came around the
house with a large pan of honey, just taken
from the hive. He set it down for me to ad-
mire, and as I admired an angry bee stung me
on the outer corner of my left eyelid and imme-
diately another, to even matters up, stung me
on the inner corner of my right eyelid.

The ranchman was offering his sympathy
when he was stung just between his eyes. Thus
bound by a common affliction, we became
chummy. He offered me honey for luncheon
and I accepted, and while the horses ate oats I
enjoyed, as fully as circumstances would per-
mit, an ample dish of honey and an hour's chat
with my friend.

MJIEM

TREES AND MORMON BEARDS 161

Now that I had reached the railroad, the
country grew more populous. Little towns were
passed at short intervals and wagons and
equestrians were becoming numerous. As I
jogged along one afternoon I heard the honk
of an automobile horn. I glanced behind and
saw the car bearing down at a terrific pace.
Neither Heart nor Button had ever seen an auto-
mobile, and I concluded I was destined to take
part in an impromptu circus performance there
and then.

One end of Button's leading rope was fast-
ened around his neck, the other end I secured
to my saddle horn and prepared to hold Heart
and depend upon the rope preventing a stam-
pede of Button. A moment later the car passed
like the wind, and to my astonishment neither
horse paid it the slightest attention. They were
absolutely fearless, I soon learned, of any mov-
ing engine, car, or noise, and when later I
passed through Salt Lake City, with all its traf-
fic, street cars, and automobiles, I felt safe to
leave them standing in the busiest street, un-
tethered, while I entered stores.

This was doubtless due to the thorough train-
ing they had received from Arizona cowboys.
Both were "gunwise," that is, accustomed to
having guns fired from their backs, and with

162 SADDLE AND CAMP

nerves thus tuned ^nd drilled they were not
frightened by sudden and unusual noise.

I was now in Sevier County, and an hour
after the automobile passed me entered Rich-
field, the county seat, a prosperous little city of
three thousand people. Very cosmopolitan it
seemed as I rode down its long main street, to
dismount at the Southern Hotel, where the
weary horses and myself were to enjoy a two
days' rest.

CHAPTER XII

WHERE PACKHORSES WERE UNKNOWN

RICHFIELD is referred to generally as a
southern Utah town, though geographi-
cally it is situated not far south of the
center of the State. Here, however, the north-
ward-bound traveler leaves behind him practi-
cally the last remnant of pioneer life and enters
into that of conventional, older-settled commu-
nities. South of Marysvale one sees horses
saddled and bridled standing before every vil-
lage store and ranchhouse, waiting patiently to
serve their master's instant needs. This indi-
cates a still remaining pioneer condition. In
a new country the settlers walk little and ride
much, for distances are long and the wagon is
used far less than the saddle horse.

A few miles north of Richfield one rarely
sees a mounted man. Boys ride bareback, to be

163

164 SADDLE AND CAMP

sure, as they do in the old-settled farming com-
munities of the East, but the saddle horse is no
longer a means of practical transportation, but
of recreation with the few. The spurred rider,
the freighter, and the stage coach are already
of the past.

Fifty years ago cattle ranged these fertile
valleys and the adjacent hills. Here the cow-
boy bloomed in all his glory.

"We were a pretty reckless lot," a one-time
cowboy told me. "Our typical dress was a blue
or red flannel shirt, trousers tucked in the tops
of knee-high boots, and often Mexican chaps, a
belt with one or two six-shooters hanging from
it in holsters, Mexican spurs with immense
rowels, a wide-brimmed Mexican sombrero, a
cigarette, and a swagger. There you have a
picture of the Utah cowboy of my day.

"The boys were generally a pretty good lot,
but some were always going around with chips
on their shoulders. We generally used cayuses
with plenty of life in them and rode hard.
Sometimes we'd get together to celebrate, and
it wasn't uncommon to dash through a settle-
ment and shoot it up, though we were always
pretty careful not to hurt anyone. Those were
good days, those reckless pioneer days, and I'd
like to live them over."

PACKHOMSES UNKNOWN 165

Now and again a prospector may ride into
Richfield leading a pack horse, but the younger
generation know little of this mode of travel,
and northward as one approaches Salt Lake
City they know nothing of it whatever. Even
the horses shied at Button and his pack and the
people — the younger ones — stared at me as
they would at a Bedouin in his desert garb, or
a curious being of another world.

I recall one evening particularly that closed
a long day's ride over dusty highways, con-
stantly dodging flying automobiles. The horses
were weary, and I, begrimed with dust, tired
and out of patience with the world, was having
all I could do to keep the poor animals to a
pace above a slow walk, when I met two young
cubs, seventeen or eighteen years of age, in a
buggy. They had never seen a pack outfit in
their tender young lives, but they had seen
newspapers and cartoons, and staring at me in
open-mouthed astonishment one facetiously ex-
claimed: "Hello, Teddy!" They did not laugh
or even smile, but maintained serious expres-
sions of countenance. Perhaps they thought me
The Teddy, wandering unannounced through
their country. Neither did I smile nor deign
to answer them, though I thought many
thoughts uncomplimentary to them, and it is

166 SADDLE AND CAMP

needless to say I saw no humor in the situation.
Above all I wished most heartily to be back in
the wilderness and God's open country again,
where people know a pack outfit when they see
it.

This illustrates the evolution of half a cen-
tury— of much less than half a century. It il-
lustrates the rapidity with which our country
has been transformed, how readily we discard
the old and adopt the new, how quickly we for-
get the things of yesterday. It illustrates how a
country may pass through all the stages of evo-
lution within half the lifetime of a man.

Fish Lake, famous among Utah anglers for
its trout, lies in the mountains back of Rich-
field. During the season preceding my visit
the State hatcheries secured 3,650,000 trout eggs
from this lake alone, to be hatched in the Mur-
ray, Springville, and Panguitch hatcheries. It
is the favorite resort of anglers of the valley,
who are always certain to be rewarded with
well-filled creels. Utah has five thousand miles
of lakes and streams suitable for game fish, and
her fish culturists are devoting themselves to
keeping their waters stocked. In the year 1910
the culturists planted 4,379,010 Eastern brook,
German brown, and rainbow trout fry, and
5,197,000 native trout fry, to say nothing of their

PACKHORSES UNKNOWN 167

attention to bass and other valuable fishes. In
Utah Lake, for instance, one finds as good
small-mouthed black bass fishing as can be had
in the United States, and most of the trout
streams are well stocked and in excellent con-
dition.

Utah waters are particularly well adapted to
the rapid development of trout. As an exam-
ple, observation shows that not infrequently
Eastern brook trout, planted as fry, attain a
length of eight inches within a period of eight
months. The tributaries of the Rio Virgin, the
Panguitch River, and other tributaries of the
Sevier, as well as the Upper Sevier itself, are
excellent trout streams. This may be said in
fact of all the mountain streams of Utah, and
it may be said also that they are improving,
under the direction of the fish culturists who
are annually planting these millions of fry and
increasing the number of fry planted with each
season.

In planting their fry in the season of 1910,
the Utah fish culturists made a marked depart-
ure from the almost universal custom of plant-
ing fry in swift-running water, and instead
planted it in shallow waters at the head of
streams where the current was slight and where
water cress and other growth was abundant and

■

168 SADDLE AND CAMP

harbored insect life, upon which young trout
thrive. Farther down the streams obstructing
dams were erected to shut out the larger trout,
which would otherwise have ascended and de-
voured great numbers of the fry. At the end of
three months, when the young fish had grown
large enough to care for themselves, the ob-
structions were removed. Actual observation
proved that this method resulted in a consid-
erably larger percentage of trout that survived
and grew to maturity than results when the
other method is employed.

Utah was once a magnificent game field, but
civilization, as elsewhere, has wrought its de-
struction throughout the State. Even in the
wide stretches of still unsettled mountain wil-
derness and arid plain behind the fertile settled
valleys, so sad a depletion of wild life has taken
place that scarcely a section remains in the
whole State that can be recommended as a fav-
orable field for sportsmen, other than anglers,
excepting only duck shooting.

While in Kanab I was informed by men who
claimed to have seen them, that a few moun-
tain sheep inhabit the ridges to the eastward in
Kane and Garfield Counties, and also in the
mountains of San Juan County north of Bluff
City. Later I was informed by a man in Long

PACKHORSES UNKNOWN 169

Valley that he had seen sheep in the Henry
Mountains.

There are mountain sheep in Washington
County, in the southeast of Utah. Observers
claim that since Utah established a permanent
closed season on sheep, these herds have slightly
increased in size and but for the large number
of predatory animals would annually show a
decided increase.

In nearly all of the southern counties, as for
instance Grand, San Juan, Kane, Washington,
and Iron Counties, a few antelope have sur-
vived the war of extermination and like the
mountain sheep are said to be increasing in
numbers since hunting has been prohibited.

Domestic sheep and sheep herders are the
greatest enemies of the antelope, as well as of
other game animals and birds in the regions
where herders take their flocks. The ranges
over which domestic sheep pasture are denuded
of forage and stripped of all growth, and ante-
lope will not remain upon a range where sheep
have been. Sheep herders, too, in secluded
regions have excellent opportunity to kill game
without detection. They make the most of the
opportunity, and many antelope undoubtedly
fall before their rifles, for a herder, wearying
of a diet of mutton, is never over-scrupulous

170 SADDLE AND CAMP

about legal prohibitions when he may substi-
tute the flesh of wild animals and birds for mut-
ton.

Thus the sheep, sweeping clean all before
them and leaving the ranges over which they
pass unproductive, for several succeeding sea-
sons, of pasturage for either wild or domestic
animals, together with the destructive shep-
herds, are the worst enemies at present of Utah's
wild game, particularly of antelope, sage hens,
and grouse. We must endure sheep, for we
must have mutton and wool, but it would seem
reasonable to exclude them from some of those
ranges where antelope are striving for exist-
ence and confine the herdsmen and their flocks
to other ranges where wild life has already be-
come extinct, for such ranges are numerous and
available and the restriction would entail no
great hardship.

While the antelope ranges of southern Utah
have not yet been invaded and denuded by such
great numbers of sheep as have swept the game
fields of Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana, this
fate is doubtless in store for them at no distant
day, and when the sheep and the shepherds
have wrought their destruction, antelope will
vanish. In Iron County, which has already
become an extensive sheep region, settlers tell

PACKHORSES UNKNOWN 171

us that before the advent of sheep grass grew so
luxuriously that a yearling calf lying in it could
not be seen. Not only has the grass here been
eaten, but the roots tramped out and killed by
the hoofs of thousands upon thousands of sheep,
and now wide areas where not long since grass
was so plentiful are as bare and desolate as sand
piles.

The destruction of game had so far advanced
in 1907 that it was deemed wise to prohibit all
hunting of deer, elk, antelope, mountain sheep,
otter, or beaver within the State for a period of
four years. Section 21 of the Fish and Game
Law provides that the penalty for killing, pos-
sessing, selling, or offering for sale any of these
animals or parts thereof shall be a fine of not
less than one hundred dollars and imprisonment
of not less than sixty days for each offense, and
leaves no choice between fine or imprisonment.
Consulting a copy of the Fish and Game Law
given me by the Commissioner, I find a curious
conflict in this section (Section 21). In one
paragraph there is an absolute prohibition
against killing, shooting at, possessing, etc., any
deer, elk, and other enumerated animals, at any
season, within the State. The following para-
graph, however, provides:

"It shall be lawful for any resident to kill

172 SADDLE AND CAMP

deer from October 15th to November 15th,"
limiting the number for each person to one
deer during the open season. Under this pro-
vision residents hunt deer, and a goodly num-
ber are killed, but there is no provision by
which non-residents may be permitted to hunt
deer, though there is provision for a non-resi-
dent license. All male residents, too, over
twelve years of age, must procure a license to
hunt or fish, but children under twelve and all
"female persons" residing within the State may
hunt and fish without license.

Utah is very thoughtful in providing for her
"female persons." Possibly this discrimination
against "male persons" is because women have
the ballot. It is certain that the Mormon
church retains and will continue to retain con-
trol of the political situation in Utah because
the women vote. Women are always more de-
voted to their religion than men. Adherents to
the Mormon denomination are much like ad-
herents to other Christian denominations, and
Mormon women are no exception to the rule.
Let the First Presidency indicate that they are
to vote and are to vote a certain way, and noth-
ing on earth can deter them from voting and
from voting as the powers dictate.

The young men, however, are more and more

PACKHORSES UNKNOWN 173

breaking away from the trammels of the
church, and are patriotically acting upon the
dictates of their conscience and voting as they
please, whether this is or is not in accordance
with the expressed wishes of the First Presi-
dency, and very often it is not. In the early
days of Utah the church and territorial gov-
ernment were under one head. It is very hard
for the older Mormons and any of the women
communicants of the church to realize that this
is not the case to-day, or at least why it should
not be.

Deer are increasing in nearly all the wooded
mountainous regions, and Seaman assured me
they were on the whole rather plentiful in the
territory at the head of Long Valley.

Bears, too, are scattered through the vari-
ous wilderness regions of Utah, from the Rio
Virgin country to the Idaho line, and in the
wooded mountains. They are not plentiful,
however — indeed they are becoming scarce, and
rare indeed is the silver tip.

Bounties are paid on all the more destruct-
ive predatory animals, but these bounties are
not sufficiently liberal to induce hunters and
trappers to devote particular attention to their
capture. Of these the mountain lion, the coy-
ote, and the wildcat are the most destructive to

m SADDLE AND CAMP

young game animals and birds. If they could
be radically reduced in number very doubtless,
with the present protective laws, game would
show a more marked increase, particularly
deer. There are, too, some timber wolves. As
a result of inquiry I am satisfied that predatory
animals are steadily increasing, and much more
rapidly than the protected animals. This is
natural, with hunting limited, for few sports-
men go into the field particularly for predatory
animals, though when in the field they may in-
cidentally kill many, and those who hunt for
a business must have sufficient reward as an in-
ducement.

Northward from Richfield populous valleys
in continuous succession lead on to Salt Lake
City, and only once in this stretch of country —
near Juab — did night find me between villages,
where I was called upon to lie out in the open
sage brush. Nowhere here does the traveler
find sufficiently good grazing upon the open
range for his horses. Indeed the free range is
rapidly disappearing, and even those areas in-
capable of irrigation because of no known sup-
ply of water are being located as "dry farms,"
and dry farming is carried on to no inconsid-
erable extent.

On the dry farm oats and wheat are almost

Photograph by A. G. Livingston

America's Best Rig Game,

PACKHOBSES UNKNOWN 175

exclusively the crops. The method is to plant
each alternate year, and during the unplanted
year turn over the soil two or three times, and
oftener if the ranchman finds it convenient.
One ranchman told me that he had sixteen hun-
dred acres which he worked under the dry
farming method, which in normal seasons —
approximately one-half of it being planted each
year — produced sixteen thousand bushels of
oats. This was the season of harvest, and every-
where I encountered big steam thrashers and
stackers on the highway, cumberously moving
under their own steam from ranch to ranch,
with the horse-drawn tenders, carrying coal and
water, trailing behind.

Near Juab I passed what was claimed to be
a new oil region. So far as I could learn no
oil had yet been struck, but they were erecting
derricks and were nearly ready to begin boring.
As is usual in a new oil or mining region, those
interested were in high expectation of making
great strikes and attaining great riches.

Now and again an old pioneer would stop
me with the greeting:

"Hello, pard. Your outfit looks good to me.
Makes me think of old times. Come fur?"

"Yes, came up from Arizona," I would an-
swer.

176 SADDLE AND CAMP

"That's some trip. You're traveling right.
Pack outfit's th' only way."

At Springville I met George (Beefsteak)
Harrison, one of the few remaining trail blaz-
ers of the desert, an early California pioneer,
who for sixty years has been a character of the
country. He has a little caravansary where I
dined. When he learned I had watered at
Coyote Holes, he left "Mr." off my name and
sang me some local songs; one, I recall, to the
tune of "Where is my Wandering Boy To-
night," ran like this:

"Where is Blackhawk and Chief Sanpitch?
They're having a big pow-pow;
They've gone to smoke the pipe of peace —
The Indians are ticaboo now.

"Blackhawk stole cattle from Scipio;
Was known as a wicked Ute.
He laid down his gun and his bow
When he could no longer shoot."

Utah Valley was in the midst of its fruit har-
vest and the air was redolent with the perfume
of ripe apples and peaches. Utah Lake shim-
mered at my left. An autumnal haze lay over
the valley, the mountains rose somber and grim
on either side, and the quiet, dreamy beauty of
it all was of the character that breeds in one an
indescribable longing — a desire for something

PACKHOBSES UNKNOWN 177

quite beyond .human grasp — something that is
akin to homesickness.

I was glad at length to round the point of
mountain, where the Wasatch Range crowds
down to separate Utah Valley from Salt Lake
Valley. Here from the elevated "Point of
Mountain," as it is locally called, old familiar
peaks where I had once spent a summer loomed
into view and the lovely valley, reaching away
to the Great Salt Lake, lay at my feet.

At half past two on August thirty-first I
drew into Draper, seventeen miles from Salt
Lake City, and was greeted by my old friend
and former traveling companion in Mexico,
Mr. Wilmot Randall. He was expecting me
and had provided for the care of my horses,
while I proceeded by train to the big game
region of northwestern Colorado.

CHAPTER XIII

COLORADO'S DISAPPEARING GAME

WHILE Colorado was at one time one
of the best stocked game States in the
country, it may be said to-day that the
only section of the State where the sportsman
in search of big game may go with reasonable
assurance of securing the trophies sought, is
that section, including Routt County, which lies
north of the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad
and west of the Front and Medicine Bow moun-
tain ranges. By "big game trophies" is meant
deer, silver tip and black bears; these are the
only big game animals, aside from predatory
animals, which under the present law may be
hunted in the State.

It was my desire to visit this region and make
as complete a survey of the game condition as
a brief side trip could afford. With this in

178

DISAPPEARING GAME 179

view I had previously arranged to meet some of
the leading guides and hunters with whom I
had been in correspondence, and, my horses
comfortably provided for, I turned eastward
from Utah.

Twenty-four hours by train carried me from
Salt Lake City to Denver, where I tarried a
day to confer with Mr. Thomas J. Holland,
Colorado's very efficient Game and Fish Com-
missioner, and to call upon others interested in
the wild life of the State, before continuing
my journey to Steamboat Springs, in Routt
County.

Denver, perhaps more than any other city of
the West, impresses upon one the rapid trans-
formation of our country from an unknown wil-
derness to a condition of advanced civilization.

Albert D. Richardson describes it as con-
taining less than three hundred buildings,
nearly all of hewn pine logs, when he and Hor-
ace Greeley visited it in 1859. One-third were
abandoned, unfinished and roofless5 for the
early hints of great gold deposits, which had
inspired the first settlers to locate here, had not
yet materialized. "There were few glass win-
dows, or doors, and but two or three board
floors, and the occupants of the cabins lived
upon the native earth, hard, smooth, and clean-

180 SADDLE AND CAMP

swept. Chairs were a glory yet to come. Town
lots and log houses were bartered for revolvers,
or sold for ten or twenty dollars." That was
Denver only fifty years ago!

It is not difficult, then, for one visiting this
great modern city to-day, with its 213,000 in-
habitants and its many tributary cities and
towns, to appreciate the causes of diminution
of Colorado's game, for wild game and a dense
population cannot co-exist. At the time of which
Richardson wrote antelope were numerous in
the vicinity of Denver, and herds of them
flecked the plains to the eastward, and the ad-
jacent mountains were abundantly stocked with
deer and other big game animals. There are
some antelope still not far away, and on the
same plains one may see them now and again
from the window of a railway coach. They are
few and scattered, though, protected by a per-
petual closed season against hunting, we are as-
sured that a gradual increase is taking place.

Colorado, however, still retains wide, unset-
tled areas. It is a big State and naturally con-
tains much territory that cannot readily be
adapted to settlement. The game region of
northwestern Colorado is one of these regions,
and because it is naturally better suited than
other unsettled regions of the State to a consid-

BIS APPEARING GAME 181

erable variety of game animals, it has remained
the best stocked region in Colorado.

Eleven hours by railway carried me from
Denver to Steamboat Springs. This is one of
the most picturesque and thrilling railway trips
in the world. The train leaves Denver, at an
altitude of 5,170 feet, and at once begins the
ascent of the continental divide. Up and up
it climbs, doubling and redoubling upon itself,
in and out of innumerable small tunnels, skirt-
ing precipitous walls, past nile-green lakes nes-
tling in hollows amid fir-clad mountains, always
presenting wide views, entrancing beyond the
grasp of imagination, until, at the end of eigh-
teen miles, timber line has been passed and the
summit of the pass is reached, 1 1,660 feet above
the sea and surrounded by perpetual snow.

Then the descent is begun, and in the vast
timbered area west of the continental divide
the big game country begins, extending west-
ward and southward. The scenery is rugged in
the extreme. Now and again one glimpses
mountain streams, said to be alive with trout,
pouring down over rocks to join other streams
in their course to the far-away Pacific. This
was a favorite hunting ground for the old-time
trappers, and more than one profitable and
eventful trapping season was spent in this

182 SADDLE AND CAMP

region by Kit Carson and his adventurous com-
panions, gathering a harvest of beaver pelts
while they maintained an almost constant war-
fare against the Indians.

There were several local sportsmen on the
train, bound for various stations, all eager to
be first in the field with the opening of the prai-
rie chicken season the following day. No in-
troduction was needed, and I made myself a
member of several groups and obtained some
hints which served to verify reports previously
made me by guides with whom I had been in
correspondence.

Our train reached Steamboat Springs, the
terminus of the road, at seven o'clock in the
evening. This is an attractive place, sur-
rounded by numerous springs of soda, sulphur,
iron, and other mineralized waters, and boasts
a comfortable hotel. It is rather far west to
meet the guides, most of them, in the Routt
County district, living in the neighborhood of
Yampa.

The following morning I took an early train
to Phippsburg, in Yampa township, a few miles
to the eastward of Steamboat Springs, where I
met Albert Whitney, a well-known bear and
lion hunter and guide, as well as several other
of the local hunters. It had been my hope to

DISAPPEARING GAME 183

cross the intervening counties to the southward
on horseback from Phippsburg to Glenwood
Springs, visit Meeker and Rifle, and meet as
many guides and hunters as possible, and thus
secure as intimate a knowledge of the game
country and conditions as such a trip would af-
ford, but this, I found, would require more time
than I had at my disposal and rob me of time
which I wished to devote to Wyoming and
Montana. Though this was early September,
snow had already fallen, a suggestion of what
might be expected in the country farther north.
Therefore, after two days in Phippsburg, I
returned to Denver and proceeded by train to
Glenwood Springs.

This is the chief rendezvous of the Colorado
guides and an excellent outfitting point. Chief
among the guides here are Anderson and Bax-
ter, who work together as partners, and W. W.
Warner. All of them were absent, however, to
my disappointment, save Steve Baxter, a fa-
mous old-time hunter and trapper, one of the
pioneers of the region and a member of the firm
of Anderson & Baxter. Steve, who has hunted
from Montana to old Mexico, possesses one of
the finest packs of bear and lion dogs in the
country. He was with Harry Whitney, the
well-known sportsman-author of Arctic fame,

184 SADDLE AND CAMP

when the latter secured a record grizzly north
of Glenwood Springs a few years ago.

Previous to going West I had corresponded
with fish and game commissioners, game war-
dens, licensed guides, and others, in the States
through which I planned to travel and had re-
ceived from them estimates of the amount of
game still remaining in the various localities
with which they were familiar, the amount of
each of several kinds of animals killed during
the previous year, and the number of legalized
hunters. It will be understood how difficult
it is to make a close estimate of wild animals
covering a large spread of country.

When one pauses to consider the vast ex-
tent of territory included, even in a single one
of our Western States, this will be appreciated.
There are several States, for example, much
larger than Colorado, but when we remember
that Colorado alone has an area equal to the
combined areas of Maine, New Hampshire,
Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode
Island, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, and
Hawaii, with enough territory left over to make
a new State considerably larger than Massachu-
setts, some conception can be formed of the
real bigness of the West.

A State larger than Massachusetts could be

DISAPPEARING GAME 185

made of Gunnison County, Colorado, alone.
With this in mind, let us remember that the
game estimates I shall give, though compiled
from the reports of the best observers in the
localities under consideration, are only approx-
imate.

Let it be said to the honor of Colorado that
several years ago the State awoke to the fact
that mountain sheep were rapidly disappear-
ing and that prompt action was needed to save
them from extermination. Absolute protection
was extended by law to this monarch of game
animals, and they began to increase noticeably.
My estimate, compiled from reports, places the
number at present within the State at approxi-
mately 3,500, and I may say that this totals
fully one-half of all the mountain sheep now re-
maining in the United States.

In other words, it is doubtful if the United
States possesses to-day more than seven thou-
sand, with Wyoming and Montana following
Colorado with probably less than five hundred
sheep each; both of these States still permit
hunting in spite of the fact that the animals are
nearing extinction and that the ranges in the
high altitudes and rugged mountain peaks in-
habited by them are incapable of supporting
any other animal of value save the mountain

186 SADDLE AND CAMP

goat. When the Wyoming and Montana
ranges, which might support many thousand
sheep under normal conditions, are finally de-
populated, as they are sure to be at a not dis-
tant date, they will be unutilized, desolate,
silent wastes.

Though Colorado still has so large a pro-
portion of the sheep, her ranges could easily
support many times the present number, and
to have the prohibition against killing sus-
pended for several years to come would appeal
to those interested in perpetuating the species
as little short of a calamity. Some of the guides
are exceedingly anxious to have an open hunt-
ing season, for this would then be the best and
most available hunting ground for mountain
sheep in the country, the animals could be
killed with a comparatively small expenditure
of effort, and sportsmen would flock here to se-
cure trophies while they are to be had, to the
increased wealth of the guides. This does not
apply, of course, to all the guides, for some of
the best of them are animal conservers, and I
am sure, had they a voice in the matter, would
oppose the movement.

Every section has its quota of hunters who
care nothing for the future or the preservation
of species. They think only of to-day and care

BIS APPEARING GAME 187

nothing about to-morrow. The animals are
there and they believe they should have a
chance at them now. These are the people
everywhere who bring pressure to bear on local
members of the legislature belonging to their
districts, and the members, fearful of losing ad-
herents and with nothing more than a passing
interest in the game themselves, introduce laws
and give their vote without regard to the future
of the game and in accordance with the wishes
of the selfish ones, relying upon the fact that
the remaining majority have too little interest
in the subject to be influenced by their course.

Mountain sheep have three great enemies
that naturally retard increase, even when there
are no open seasons as in Colorado — the
poacher, the cougar, and the golden eagle.
These are the enemies, in fact, of all game ani-
mals, not only here, but throughout the game
districts of the West, wherever they exist, and
unfortunately the poacher is to be found wher-
ever there is game, East and West, though here
and there I found localities where a strong
game-protection feeling has grown up and
poaching is not common.

Practically wherever I went I encountered a
strong feeling of sympathy for the poacher. In
some sections ranchmen and mountaineers ex-

188 SADDLE AND CAMP

pressed themselves without reserve as seeing no
harm in "getting a piece of meat" whenever
they want it. The sentiment is carried into ex-
ecution in all secluded sections, and not a few
mountain sheep, deer, elk, and wild fowl are
killed in Colorado by men who believe they are
morally right in doing so, irrespective of law.

Colorado has too few game wardens by far
to watch everybody, and some of them are not
over-anxious to see infringements, for reasons
that appeal to them as quite sufficient. The best
wardens are United States forestry rangers, in
States where they are clothed with authority to
make arrests. They are usually not native to
the localities where they are stationed and have
no preferences or axes to grind. Local war-
dens, on the contrary, are frequently appointed
through the instrumentality of their friends,
and they hesitate to prosecute those friends
whom they find infringing the law. Not infre-
quently to do so would mean the loss of their
offices.

There are some instances where the wardens
themselves are notorious poachers, and their
appointment, through proper influence, leaves
a free field in their districts, save to some un-
fortunate outsider who intrudes, or to those
who do not belong to the charmed circle. This

Min

DISAPPEARING GAME 189

reference is not to Colorado alone. Other
States are equal sinners.

One rank open case of poaching came to my
knowledge in Routt County. During July,
1910, a New York City man, who lives on Riv-
erside Drive and whose name and address I
know, appeared at Yampa with two compan-
ions. At the local livery stable they em-
ployed a guide who took them with their outfit
to a point in the Flat Tops, near what is known
as the Devil's Causeway. Here the guide fitted
up their camp, made them comfortable, and re-
turned to his duties at Yampa. The party wras
presumably on a fishing trip, as at this season
there is no open season on any game. The
guide applied for and secured the necessary li-
censes. Here they spent six weeks, moving
camp a short distance once.

A guide who had a camping party in the
mountains observed them from a distance and
brought his party, consisting of a Chicago man,
another gentleman, and the Chicago man's wife,
to a rendezvous where, unseen, they witnessed
a wigwag signal from above the Devil's Cause-
way to some one below. The Devil's Cause-
way, it may be explained, is a narrow natural
bridge spanning a gorge. Presently shooting
began.

190 SADDLE AND CAMP

Later the guide and his party watched the
men skinning a mountain sheep's head. Field
glasses were used by the guide's party, though
they were near enough to see very well with
the naked eye. The Devil's Causeway is a reg-
ular runway for sheep. One of the men hunt-
ing for them discovered the sheep, on the op-
posite side, wigwagged the information to his
friends to be ready for them, closed in above
the animals, and started them across the cause-
way, where they were shot. How many were
killed I cannot say.

Another man, not connected with this party
of observers, walked into the camp later and
surprised one of the three retreating into a
tent with a freshly killed sheep ham and
claimed he found evidence that several elk had
also been killed. The guide notified a game
warden what had been seen. The day follow-
ing the warning the man who had taken the
party in went for them, brought them out to the
station at Yampa, and they departed. Their
baggage included trunks of ample dimensions
to accommodate sheep heads. When they were
well away and safely out of reach, the warden
went to the mountains. There was nothing, of
course, to be found.

But the authorities now and again catch the

DISAPPEARING GAME 191

poachers. I was in Mr. Holland's office in the
State Capitol one day when a poor mountaineer
guilty of sheep killing was brought in. They
had caught him red handed, and I understand
that he was severely punished and others had
preceded him.

In order that a game commissioner prosecute
the duties of his office satisfactorily and effect-
ively not only he, but his wardens and depu-
ties, should be especially qualified for the posi-
tion they fill; no matter how well qualified or
energetic he may be, he labors under a severe
handicap unless his wardens are also efficient
and energetic and free from political taint.

Speaking generally of all our States, the com-
missioner himself should be a sportsman and
something of a naturalist — a man who not only
loves the wilderness and the living things of
the forest, but knows from observation some-
thing of the habits of animals, birds, and fish.
He should have sufficient knowledge of these
things to decide when a range is well enough
stocked to admit of hunting, or when and how
to restock a depleted range. A man of this sort
could be trusted with power, under certain re-
strictions, to close and open hunting seasons by
proclamation, as necessity demanded; or at
least to make recommendation to the legisla-

192 SADDLE AND CAMP

ture, which the legislature would as a matter
of course follow.

Wardens and deputy wardens should be ap-
pointed only upon competitive examinations as
to qualifications and stationed at points where
they will do the most good, regularly patrolling
their districts. Their position should not de-
pend upon the rise or fall of the political party
to which they belong. It would seem that the
game is valuable enough to warrant such addi-
tional expense as this might entail, and in all
probability license fees would make the depart-
ment, if administered on business principles,
not only self-sustaining but very remunerative
to the State. There is indeed a question
whether or not game on all national forest re-
serves should not come under Federal control,
as the migratory habits of birds and many spe-
cies of animals make them to some extent, at
least, inter-state property. Every citizen of the
United States has, so to speak, a quasi interest
in all the game within these reserves.

Under the present methods universally in
vogue throughout the United States, the com-
missioner receives his appointment through po-
litical preferment, irrespective of qualification.
He, in turn, appoints his wardens because they
are good party men, who have lent their aid to

DISAPPEARING GAME 193

the advancement of party interests. Their
qualification for the position does not enter
very largely into the question. I have no doubt
those now holding office under this plan and
the politicians who wish to retain as many po-
litical plums for distribution as possible would
oppose such change strongly and be highly in-
dignant at the charge that the present system is
not wholly adequate, but it is, nevertheless, true
that it is highly inadequate.

I know one game commissioner who it is gen-
erally claimed throughout his State, does not
know a prairie chicken from a spruce grouse.
He was appointed as a reward for activity dur-
ing a political campaign, and to make a place
for him an unusually competent commissioner,
a man who had made a life study of animals
and their habits, was deposed. In one big game
section I asked if the local wardens took an ac-
tive and intelligent interest in the game. The
answer was "Yes, the poker game ; but no other."
This applies equally well to many sections.

Returning to Colorado, it is probable that a
close approximation of the elk would be two
thousand, and while they are scattered over va-
rious sections of the State, the greater part are
in the northwest. This is a good nucleus for
increase, and with proper care and preserva-

194 SADDLE AND CAMP

tion Colorado may in time have some good
herds, for her winter and summer ranges are
well adapted to elk.

From reports received I find it impossible
to even approximate the number of deer in Col-
orado, or even to estimate with any degree of
accuracy the number annually killed. The
guides could tell me how many were killed by
their parties, but they are unanimous in stating
that so many are secured by natives hunting
without guides that the reports sent me are no
indication of the number actually killed.

With the exception of two or three, however,
all admit that deer are noticeably decreasing, or
were, previous to 1909. Then the laws permit-
ted the killing of does and fawns, and the
slaughter was in consequence considerable;
with 1909 the season was shortened to ten days,
and only bucks with horns allowed.

Mr. Holland informed me that eagles were
the greatest destroyers of young fawns and
lambs and in his judgment contributed more
than any other factor to retarding increase.
Mountain lions and lynx also get their share of
the game, and a very considerable share, too.
Baxter's parties alone killed, during 1909,
twelve lions and twenty-eight lynx. This may
be taken as an indication of how numerous

The Big Cats are Deadly Enemies of Our Big Game.

Lunching on the Shore of Bear Lake Near tire Utah-Idaho State Line.

DISAPPEARING GAME 195

they are and the depredation they must neces-
sarily commit.

The highest estimate I received of the
smaller bears in northwestern Colorado was
two thousand, and the highest estimate of griz-
zlies two hundred. The next approaching it
was one thousand small bears and one hundred
grizzlies, and from the information, contained
in the majority of reports I should say that even
this could be cut down to five hundred of the
one and fifty of the other as a very liberal ap-
proximation. During 1909 Baxter captured
thirty-three of the smaller bears and one
grizzly. Considerable numbers were killed by
others.

With very few exceptions hunters and ranch-
men with whom I discussed the question
throughout the West were in favor of protec-
tive laws for all bears. It was conceded that
these animals are now confined to such remote
localities and are so few in number that their
destruction of domestic stock is almost nil. Even
the grizzly has become harmless, and the
smaller bears never were a destructive factor.

Bears breed so slowly that, unless steps are
soon taken to protect them, the day of their ex-
termination is close at hand. It may be claimed
by the materialists that any plea for the bear is

196 SADDLE AND CAMP

purely sentimental, but who among nature
lovers would not feel more than a qualm of
sorrow were this noble animal of the wilder-
ness, which played so large a part in our child-
ish fancy and dreams, driven to extinction?
Furthermore, it has a decided value, even from
the most sordid standpoint, for its pelt, if for
nothing else.

Northwestern Colorado — Colorado as a
whole, in fact — is so interesting that I turned
westward again to Salt Lake to resume the sad-
dle with keen regret that I could not dip
farther into its wilderness and revel for a time
in its lofty, rugged peaks and marvelous
scenery.

CHAPTER XIV

THE FRONTIER ONCE MORE

BEFORE history began an ancient lake,
called by geologists Lake Bonneville,
covered a great portion of what are now
the fertile fields of northern Utah and southern
Idaho. Lake Bonneville was a fresh water lake
two-thirds as large as Lake Superior, a thou-
sand feet deep, with an outlet to the north
toward Snake River. Growing aridity of cli-
mate dried Lake Bonneville away until all that
is left of it now is Great Salt Lake, the "Dead
Sea of America," some eighty miles in length
and forty miles in width, with an extreme
depth of fifty feet, and lying 4,210 feet above
sea level.

Through Baron La Hontan the world first
heard of Great Salt Lake, in the year 1689. In
1820 Mr. Miller, of John Jacob Astor's fur
company, visited its shores. It was seen and

197

198 SADDLE AND CAMP

reported again in 1825 by Mr. John Bedford,
and again in 1833 by members of Captain
Bonneville's expedition. Later, Kit Carson and
some others of the adventurous trappers who
penetrated this far wilderness saw the lake.
But the first attempt at scientific exploration
was made by Fremont, under the guidance of
Kit Carson, in 1843, when, by means of a leaky
folding India-rubber boat, he visited with Car-
son and some other members of his party what
is now known as Fremont's Island, but which
he himself named Disappointment Island.

This was a land of deepest mystery and ro-
mance in those early days. Trappers had
brought out to the world marvelous tales of the
wonders of the great lake. It was popularly
believed that it had an underground outlet and
where the waters sank was a great and fearful
whirlpool.

The old myths have been dispelled; the old
trappers and their romantic lives, Pocatello
and his marauding Indians, the struggling pi-
oneer and settler, have all given way to the new
reality — comfortable living and civilization.
Salt Lake City stands on what was once the
bottom of Lake Bonneville, whose foam-crested
waves rolled a thousand feet above her present
street^

THE FRONTIER ONCE MORE 199

The abundance of game that was found in
northern, as in southern, Utah by the pioneer
has largely gone, also, and the sportsmen of to-
day are greatly interested in the preservation of
what remains, and not only the city, but every
town and hamlet in the valley has, in proportion
to the population, an unusually large number of
men devoted to rod and gun. For example,
Salt Lake City has an organization known as
the "Hot Air Club," formed to discuss and de-
vise means for the better protection of the di-
minishing game. The members of this asso-
ciation are well-informed business and profes-
sional men intensely interested in game pro-
tection, who believe that the preservation of
game and fish should be taken out of the realm
of politics and established on a scientific basis.
When they first came together the politicians
facetiously dubbed them the "Hot Air Club."
The club promptly adopted the name and bear
it with honor.

There are some eleven game protective asso-
ciations spread out over the State, which are
more or less closely allied with each other. A
large proportion of the members of these allied
clubs have been sworn in as deputy game
wardens, to serve without pay, and through
them many violators of the game laws have

200 SADDLE AND CAMP

been apprehended. Their efforts, however,
have been chiefly directed toward the education
of the people in the preservation and conserva-
tion of game and fish.

Not alone are the members of these allied
associations working in conjunction with the
State Department to protect and propagate
fish and game and exerting their influence with
the legislature — an influence recognized by the
politicians — to pass adequate laws, but they are
devoting themselves to the education of the in-
dividual members of the communities in which
they reside. They have no big meetings, they
do not indulge in pyrotechnic oratory, they dis-
tribute no livid literature. They get down to
the ground and do work that tells. In this edu-
cational feature they are doing more really
beneficial protective work than any other body
of allied sportsmen in the country. And
through the interest they have awakened in the
subject they have built up their power.

But in spite of this poaching exists, as it is
sure to exist in every country where there is
game, and many poachers escape. In Utah,
just as in other States, I met men who believed
that any legal restriction of hunting was an en-
croachment upon personal rights, and I learned
of several instances where such individuals had

THE FRONTIER ONCE MORE 201

killed prairie chickens and grouse unlawfully.
Heavy fines, however, and a large number of
deputy wardens, paid and unpaid, are resulting
in an increase of deer, and let us hope of moun-
tain sheep, in the southwestern part of the
State.

The sportsmen of Utah were greatly agitated
over an epidemic among ducks and other water
fowl on the marshes contiguous to Great Salt
Lake. It was estimated that at least a quarter
million ducks, as well as innumerable geese,
plover, snipe of various species, and even some
sea gulls, lay dead on these marshes, and they
were still dying by thousands. I visited the
lake, and the stench at some points from the
putrefying flesh of birds can only be described
as awful. The gun clubs were not to open, and
no shooting was to be done during the season.

Some of the dead ducks were sent to the Di-
vision of Pathology, of the Bureau of Animal
Industry, at Washington, D. C, and Dr. J. R.
Mohler, Chief of the Division, reported, after
an examination of the specimens, that death was
due to intestinal coccidiosis. Dr. Mohler's re-
port stated that the ducks were in good flesh
and the viscera apparently normal, except the
intestines, which presented throughout the en-
tire length more or less extensive areas of in-

202 SADDLE AND CAMP

flammation. Microscopic examination of the
intestinal contents revealed immense numbers
of coccidia in various stages of development.

There were many theories as to the source of
infection, but the one generally accepted, and
undoubtedly the true one, was this: The Jor-
dan River is the depository of Salt Lake City
sewage. Near the point where it empties into
the lake it spreads out into a wide and shallow
mouth. The season had been an unusually dry
one, the river was low, and wide mud areas had
been left partially uncovered and strewn with
sewage upon which large numbers of ducks
were constantly feeding.

The fact that ducks fly long distances in a
few hours probably accounts for the fact that
many ducks were dying in other sections, north
and south of the Great Salt Lake. If this was
in fact the source of infection, the remedy is
undoubtedly to dredge the channel near the
mouth of the Jordan. This would carry all
sewage directly into the lake, instead of spread-
ing it over the mud flats, as at present.

Heart and Button were fat and frisky and in
splendid shape when I saddled Heart, packed
Button, and turned northward, en route to
Idaho and Wyoming. My course took me di-
rectly through Salt Lake City and Ogden. Og-

Charles Neil's Cabin on Buffalo Fork.

It was a United States Geological Survey Camp

THE FRONTIER ONCE MORE 203

den Canon, with high, perpendicular walls,
rushing river, and wood-clad corners, is one of
the most picturesque spots in northern Utah.
At one point a stream of water gushes out of the
rocks several hundred feet above the river and
is lost in mist.

But the canon is too near civilization to be
permitted to retain its wild and primitive natu-
ral beauty undefiled. Painted and plastered
over the walls of Ogden Canon one's eye meets
such legends as, "Use Pillbox's Sure Cure Rem-
edies;" "Walkfast shoes give comfort;" "For
elegance of form, wear Madam Fuzzyhead's
Corsets;" "Learn to dance at Professor Little-
wit's Academy," and so on, ad infinitum.

Ogden River, a turbulent, beautiful trout
stream, pours down through the canon and
westward, to empty its waters into Great Salt
Lake. It was on the banks of this river that one
of Captain Bonneville's men, coming upon two
Shoshone Indians peacefully fishing, ruthlessly
and without provocation shot one of them to
death and threw his body into the water. It
was also on this river that Bonneville's party
fired into some peaceful Shoshones and killed
twenty-five of them, though the Indians had
offered no hostility and even after the massacre
made no attempt at retaliation. This was, how-

204 SADDLE AND CAMP

ever, but one instance of the white invaders'
treatment of the Indians, and there is small
cause to wonder that our pioneer settlements
later were subjected to Indian raids and hos-
tilities.

It was October, and the warm sun shone
down upon the valley beyond Ogden Canon
through an Indian summer haze. Here lay the
little village of Huntsville and some scattered
ranches. The near-by mountains, where they
spread to make room for the valley, were
splotched with green and yellow, where they
draw together again, on the opposite side of the
valley, the intervening autumn haze had tinged
them a delicate, opalescent blue and purple.

Though the days were filled with balm and
sunshine, the nights were growing cold, and
every morning now the ground was stiffened
with frost. Hoar frost lay thick upon every-
thing, sparkling in the first rays of the rising
sun, when I rode out of Huntsville in early
morning. My trail led up the valley and into
Beaver Creek Canon, en route to Bear Lake,
Idaho. At Salt Lake City I had been warned
that I should find the country around Bear
Lake covered with snow, and the frosty air at
this lower altitude gave strength to the proph-
ecy as to the country farther on.

THE FRONTIER ONCE MORE 205

Presently ranches were left behind, and the
trail turned into the wooded mountains to wind
up a narrow defile down which Beaver Creek,
a magnificent trout stream, tumbled over a
rocky bed. Here in a turn in the trail I sud-
denly came upon a cowboy riding a jaded horse,
and driving three or four loose ones ahead.

"Hello, Stranger," he said, "got some to-
bacco? I'm plumb dyin' and famished for a
smoke."

While he rolled a cigarette from my tobacco
he remarked that he had lost his pouch the day
before, and I was the first person he had met
since.

"Come down from Bear Lake?" I asked.

"Yes. Been punchin' with an outfit in Idaho,
and I'm headin' for Ogden to sell these cayuses.
Reckon you're ridin' range?"

"No, just looking the country over. I'm
going to Jackson's Hole."

"Hell of a country to go through," he vol-
unteered. "It's plumb skinned of feed between
here and the lake. Sheep's et everything clean
and it's a damn outrage. It ain't likely you'll
strike any feed this side of Star Valley."

This was the report everywhere, and this lack
of forage for horses, due to the ravages of sheep,
is the one great obstacle placed in the way of

206 SADDLE AND CAMP

present-day travelers through unsettled regions
of the West.

Beaver Creek has considerable volume where
the trail enters the mountains, but ascending
the gorge it gradually shrinks into a mere rivu-
let, trickling from scattered springs. Beyond
this the diminishing trees disappear, and pres-
ently, above the gorge and on the summit of a
ridge dividing two water sheds, even willows
and shrubs gave way to sage brush.

The main road here is a wood road, which
drops over the ridge and sends branches into
some three or four canon lumber camps. The
direct road for Bear Lake turns to the left and
is little used. An hour before I met the cow-
boy on Beaver Creek, I had passed an outfit
consisting of a teamster with a heavily loaded
wagon of lumber-camp supplies and a man in
a buggy. The latter was a lumberman named
Lewis, the former one of his men, on the way to
Lewis's camp in Skunk Creek Canon. Mr.
Lewis invited me to spend the night at his camp,
where he told me forage could be had for my
horses.

The sun was sinking in the west behind a
bank of threatening clouds when I reached the
Bear Lake trail, over which the cowboy had
come. His description of the naked region

Nearly Four Inches of Sr.ow Had Fallen During the Night.

Remarkable Hot Springs in the Lower Star Valley, Wyoming.

THE FRONTIER ONCE MORE 207

through which the trail lay, with no probability
that the horses could forage their supper, de-
termined me to search for Lewis's camp, and I
therefore turned into the other trail in the hope
that good luck would lead me to Skunk Creek
Canon. The several branching trails, each
leading into a canon, rendered the selection of
the right one uncertain, but presently I came
upon a brook and decided to follow it a rea-
sonable distance up the narrow mountain defile
from which it emerged, and, if nothing devel-
oped, bivouac for the night.

Twilight was fading into darkness when I
reached the brook, and soon it grew so dark in
the narrow canon that I was compelled to rely
upon Heart's instinct to keep the trail. For-
tunately we had proceeded not much above a
mile when a camp-fire glimmered through the
trees, and a few minutes later I rode into the
circle of its light, where three men lounged
with their pipes. It proved to be Lewis's camp,
and I received a hospitable greeting.

Lewis's lumber camp was situated in a na-
tional forest reserve, and the government had
ordered all tree cutting stopped. Some logs of
a previous year's chopping were still on the
ground, and Lewis had established this tem-
porary camp to clean them up and discontinue

208 SADDLE AND CAMP

operations in accordance with the terms of the
edict. His loggers were just coming in to haul
the logs already cut to a portable sawmill which
the three men with whom I stopped were then
engaged in setting up. The only buildings yet
erected were a makeshift barn, a small shack,
and an open shed.

The sky was heavily clouded when Lewis and
his teamster joined us at nine o'clock that even-
ing, and a little later a gale was sweeping up
the canon. I spread my blankets under the
open shed, and before I fell asleep felt the first
flakes of a coming snowstorm on my face.
When I arose at dawn the following morning a
thick blanket of snow covered me, and nearly
four inches had fallen during the night. The
storm had passed, however, though the morn-
ing was raw, with fleeting clouds scudding over
the sky and a cold, penetrating wind blowing,
a chilliness that even the dazzling sunlight that
followed did not modify appreciably as I
pushed up the canon.

Travelers over the mountain ridge are rare
at any time, and all day long, beyond the lum-
ber camps, I picked my way over unbroken
trails through snow-hung firs, up and down ra-
vines or across wind-swept open spaces, and saw
no sign of human life — or any kind of life, in

THE FRONTIER ONCE MORE 209

fact, save a fox track or two, a few rabbit
tracks, and now and again a squirrel. This
disappointed me, for there are deer here, and
the lumbermen told me I should in all proba-
bility see some of them, or at least their signs,
in the fresh snow. Bear, too, were said to be
fairly numerous, and I had hoped to see a track,
for they were still abroad.

Beyond the ridge somewhere in a valley was
the little settlement of Woodruff, and with
neither compass nor definite trail to guide me,
I took the general course in which my map —
a very imperfect map, I had discovered — said
Woodruff lay, avoiding, as best I could, gulches
and canons. Now and again magnificent views
of the snow-clad country to the northward op-
ened before me — timbered areas, wide stretches
of valley and plain, and lofty mountain peaks.

In mid-afternoon I crossed a wind-swept
reach of the open country and then began a
gradual descent. Presently the snow was left be-
hind, to the relief of myself and the horses.
Here, as we dropped into the head of a narrow,
rugged canon, several prairie chickens were
started. Following the canon to its mouth, I
passed an abandoned ranch, on the banks of a
brook which coursed down a narrow valley
into which the canon opened, and near sunset

210 SADDLE AND CAMP

glimpsed a group of tents which I recognized
as a government outfit. I rode up to them and
halloed, and two or three men answered the
call. It was a United States Geological Sur-
vey camp, they told me, and, in answer to my
inquiries, said Woodruff was six miles away,
straight ahead, too far to go that evening, and
invited me to stop with them for the night.

The camp was in charge of A. E. Murling,
a veteran in the department, and with him and
his assistants the evening spent here was a par-
ticularly pleasant one. They were making the
first geological survey of the region. The day
before my arrival they had descended from the
higher altitudes and had thus escaped the snow
that I had encountered.

All of these forest-covered mountains, with
open, grassy parks, were formerly richly
stocked with elk, deer, antelope, and bear. A
few elk remain, but all the antelope have been
killed; deer, while increasing, are not plentiful,
although bears are said to be fairly numerous.
I did not see one deer track in the fresh snow.
The surveyors told me that they had seen some
earlier in the fall, as well as bears.

It is claimed that mountain sheep still in-
habit the higher and more rugged mountains
of northern and northeastern Utah, but I could

THE FRONTIER ONCE MORE 211

find no trace of them. Close questioning of
the hunters and mountaineers, from Huntsville
to Bear Lake, satisfies me beyond a reasonable
doubt that sheep in northern Utah have become
extinct. Therefore Utah's only remaining
mountain sheep are in the south. It is exceed-
ingly difficult to estimate the number with any
degree of accuracy, but from the reports which
I gathered through personal inquiry among of-
ficials and hunters, and through correspondence,
I should place the number at not far from three
hundred, and should say also that they are
slowly increasing under the protective laws
which prohibit all hunting and provide an ade-
quate and severe penalty for infringements.

As for the birds, the natives about Hunts-
ville and in that region generally believe pro-
tective laws are unjust and that they have a
moral right to shoot when they please; and
they do shoot a great many chickens, and some-
times other game, out of season. Several of
them boasted to me of having done so, and one
showed me a chicken he had just killed. Utah
is particularly well adapted to game birds, and
in a few isolated sections they are fairly plenti-
ful, but wide areas are not stocked at all and
others are very poorly stocked.

The brook, the headwaters of which I came

212 SADDLE AND CAMP

upon in the valley where the engineers were en-
camped, was Birch Creek, emptying a little
way below the engineers' camp into Twelve-
mile Creek, a tributary of Bear River. I fol-
lowed these creeks down to Woodruff, thence
turned northward along Bear River to Ran-
dolph over a high ridge, and down Laketown
Canon to the little settlement of Laketown, at
the canon's mouth and at the head of Bear
Lake.

Practically the only settlements that have yet
found foothold in Rich County are Woodruff,
Randolph, Laketown, Meadowville, and Gar-
den City, the last-named village lying on the
west shore of Bear Lake, close to the Utah-
Idaho State line. Randolph, with a population
of six hundred, is the county seat and the larg-
est and most important settlement in the county.
The houses are chiefly of hewn logs, and this is
the construction used in Rich County generally.

While the county is large in area, it is for the
most part mountainous, and the land adapted
to agriculture is practically confined to Bear
River Valley. The crops are almost exclu-
sively hay and grain. Isolated from railroads,
it still flavors of the frontier, and the traveler's
imagination is not taxed very greatly in an at-
tempt to picture it as it appeared in the days of

THE FRONTIER ONCE MORE 213

the early fur trappers, when Mr. Miller of the
Astor Fur Company and his companions
trapped beaver, only to be robbed by Indians
and set afoot naked and without arms in the
unknown wilderness, and rescued later by Mr.
Stuart, who found them in a most pitiable con-
dition on the banks of the Snake River; when
Captain Bonneville spent a winter here living
in plenty, with thousands upon thousands of
buffalo feeding about him; when Kit Carson
and his companions trapped beaver along Bear
River, and chased Indians into the mountains.
The valley lies at a mean altitude of 6,500 feet
above sea level. Its climate is, therefore, too
cold for successful fruit culture or general
farming, and to this, no doubt, is due its tardy
development.

One of the most delightful surprises of my
journey met me just before emerging from
Laketown Canon, when suddenly, at a turn of
the road, Bear Lake, stretching away between
rugged mountains as far as eye could reach,
and the little settlement on the lake shore in the
foreground, surrounded by green and framed
by canon walls, flashed up before me as sud-
denly as a lantern view appears upon the can-
vas.

There is a road on either side of the lake.

214 SADDLE AND CAMP

That on the west leads to Garden City and
Idaho settlements beyond; that on the east is
little traveled. The latter is the nearer route
to Star Valley, Wyoming, and I chose it, both
because of this, and because, as I looked down
the lake, it appealed to me as the more attrac-
tive, with precipitous mountains crowding it
on the one side, the waves of the lake washing
it on the other.

On the shore of Bear Lake I crossed the
State line into Idaho, though there was nothing
to indicate its position. Since leaving John at
Kanab I had traversed the entire length of the
State of Utah, passing through Kane, Garfield,
Paiute, Sevier, San Pete, Juab, Utah, Salt Lake,
Davis, Weber, Cache, and Rich Counties on
horseback. In the course of this journey I had
seen intimately a wide expanse of country and
had met and interviewed many of the leading
sportsmen, the humble hunters and ranchmen,
the State Game and Fish Commissioner, and
many of his deputies, and felt that this had re-
sulted in a fairly comprehensive estimate of the
game conditions of the State — a much better
estimate than could possibly be had from casual
railway visits to separated centers.

I was passing now into a new region, physi-
cally different and populated by additional

THE FRONTIER ONCE MORE 215

species of animals. The arid desert stretches
and the thickly populated valleys were behind
me. A well watered region, with its great for-
ests, lay before me, in pleasant anticipation. I
had again entered the country of the pack-
horse and Button with his pack was quite in
fashion. All about me tumultuous mountains
raised snow-capped peaks, a warning that win-
ter was at hand.

CHAPTER XV

INTO WYOMING

BEAR LAKE is one of the most beautiful
lakes in the West, and therefore in the
world. The water has a greenish tinge
and is so clear as to be perfectly transparent.
The pebbly beaches reach down with a gentle
slope and are washed white by the pure waters.
Innumerable wild fowl hover above or float
contentedly upon the bosom of the lake. Trout
by thousands may be seen where streams empty
into it. Had the sage brush on the mountains
paralleling it on either side been fir trees, it
would have been a counterpart of some of the
Labrador lakes that I have known.

Morning came frosty, with a cloudless sky,
and was followed by a day perfect beyond com-
pare. My ride down the shore of Bear Lake
atoned fully for every disagreeable feature of
the trip that had gone before.

216

INTO WYOMING 217

It is twenty-four miles from Laketown ham-
let at the upper end to a little ranch at the
lower end, where the east shore trail which I
followed joined the turnpike from Garden City
leading on to Montpelier. At the little ranch
at Turnpike, which I reached at half past four
in the afternoon and where I halted for the
night, hot sulphur springs boil out of the moun-
tain base and the water runs down in steaming
brooks to join the lake.

With a native of the ranch I walked along
the beach sands to see the sun set in sublime
effulgence of red, purple, and yellow beyond
the mountains on the opposite shore. The man
was a poet and a dreamer. He had a most de-
liberate manner of expression, which accentu-
ated his peculiarities. He had spent his life in
this region; beyond a bit of the surrounding
mountains and near-by wilderness, he had seen
nothing of the world.

"Every evenin' I come down here," said he,
"t' see th' sun go down an' th' sky light up with
bright colors, an' I think I'd like t' see th'
other countries th' sun lights when it leaves us.
They must be lands of great beauty t' reflect
such colors in th' sky, for th' sky, I takes it, is
just a big mirror. Maybe, though, it's not
earthly lands, but heaven, that's reflected. An'

218 SADDLE AND CAMP

what wonderful people must live there, for they
sure must be fit for th' land, or th' Almighty
wouldn't let 'em stay."

We walked down to the beach again, at his
suggestion, to see the lake by the light of a bril-
liant moon. The mountains threw black shad-
ows upon the near-shore waters, while beyond
them rippling waves glistened and sparkled to
the base of rising shore line opposite, while far
up the lake the star-sprinkled sky came down
to meet the sparkling waters. The only sound
was the lap of waves at our feet and the bark
of coyotes on the hills behind the ranch.

"I often wonder," said my friend, "what the
world is like outside of this, and th' big ocean
with waves as high as these mountains. I've
never seen none of th' world exceptin' some of
these hills and canons and Montpelier. Mont-
pelier's a big place, an' they have all sorts of
contraptions there. You'll hit th' town to-mor-
row. I don't care much about it. Th' folks
seem different.

"I was some interested in wagons that run
without horses — watcher call 'em? I don't re-
member. One of 'em tried to run down here in
th' summer an' got stuck just above in th' sand.
I'd like t' go an' see what there is in th' world,
for I expect there's a heap bigger places than

Below the Preuss Ranch I Crossed the Line Into Wyoming.

The Destroyers.

INTO WYOMING 219

Montpelier, with a heap of strange things they
don't have there. But," he added, after a
pause, "I expect I'll never see anything but just
this round here, an' it ain't so bad, I reckon,
with its sunsets and moonlights."

From Montpelier, the seat of Bear Lake
County, Idaho, and a local metropolis with
2,500 population, I turned to the northeast,
through Montpelier Canon, past Thomas's
Forks — not a town but a fork in the river;
there are no settlements here — and thence across
the Preuss Range of mountains. At Montpe-
lier I had crossed the railroad and there left it
behind me. Montpelier is the nearest railway
point for the settlements in Star Valley, Wy-
oming, across the Preuss Range, the first one
fifty miles away and some of them a full hun-
dred miles.

Supplies are hauled over the mountains to
the settlements by freighters driving two, four,
and sometimes six, horses. Comparatively
light loads are necessarily carried, for the
mountain grades are steep — at some points even
precipitous — and the road is not always good.
In the canon I met two of the freighters and
beyond the ridge several others.

This, too, is the route of the mail stages. A
station is maintained by the stage company

220 SADDLE AND CAMP

some two miles beyond the summit of the pass
and high up in the mountains, where tired
horses are changed for fresh ones by passing
stages. This is known as Halfway House, and
a stage driver is always in charge. Travelers
are not entertained here with beds or food, but
one's horses will be cared for if one is prepared
to pay three or four times the charge usually
made for hay and grain in settled localities.
Such excessive charge is justified by the neces-
sarily large expense incurred in hauling forage
so far. It was at Halfway House that I planned
to halt for the night.

Well up the canon are some abandoned min-
ing claims and cabins, though each year the
owners visit them for a short period and do
the assessment work required by law to hold
them. Poor men, most of them are, and for
lack of funds they have never been able to de-
velop their claims sufficiently to put them on a
paying basis. Some time in the hazy, mystic
future they believe the holes they have dug
will reward them richly.

Each believes that King Solomon's mines,
with their fabulous wealth, were nothing to
what his will prove to be some day, for the
prospector is an optimist. I never yet met one
who was not quite certain he was destined to

INTO WYOMING ««l

"strike it rich." The last of these before begin-
ning the steeper ascent of the pass is a tumble-
down cabin and barn, where some one had un-
successfully attempted ranching and mining in
conjunction. It is known as "Giveout" — very
suggestive and appropriate.

Close to Giveout I encountered a great herd
of sheep, which the shepherds told me they
were taking to Boise for the winter. In their
course over the pass they had swept all grass
and browse before them, making it quite impos-
sible for the traveler to find a suitable place
for his horses to graze for even so much as a
single night.

A grassy park, this year capable of support-
ing many animals, will be transformed by a
bunch of sheep, in a very short space of time,
into a verdureless, barren waste. This destruc-
tion applies not only to grass, but to small
shrubs, and when the heavy rains come, the
soil of hillsides, swept clean of grass and shrubs
and loosened by a thousand hoofs, the top soil
is washed away, and the land is left unproduc-
tive permanently, or for an indefinite period.

This is what is taking place in all of our for-
est reserves, and the price of wool and the price
of lamb and mutton are going up. The sheep
barons hold the situation in the palm of their

222 SADDLE AND CAMP

hands. The government charges them a nomi-
nal price for the privilege of grazing herds on
public lands; they have grown to feel that they
own these lands and send up a cry of horror at
any hint that their privileges be curtailed.
Many of the wealthy sheep men of to-day be-
gan a dozen years ago with practically nothing.
They grew rich at the expense of the public.
In many instances the government had better
have voted them a competence, for large over-
stocking has ruined the ranges for many years
for any purpose, where a moderate stocking
would have resulted in little or no damage and
preserved their value.

Not only have wide territories in Idaho, Wy-
oming, and Montana been thus rendered value-
less for either cattle or sheep grazing, but ab-
solutely uninhabitable for antelope and elk.
Had reason governed the sheep men and gov-
ernment officials concerned in this, wide areas
that to-day will not support a grasshopper
might have still held herds of domestic sheep,
as well as wild antelope and elk. This applies
to much of the public land in national forest
reserves through which I rode, from southern
Utah to Montana.

Beyond Giveout the road rises steadily, and
at last abruptly, to the summit of the pass.

Booth's Ferry.

Deposit From the Star Valley Hot Springs.

INTO WYOMING MS

Quaking aspens, pines, and firs cover the moun-
tain sides, and the air is sweet with forest per-
fumes. From the summit one has a magnificent
view of surrounding mountains, overtopped by
snow-capped peaks.

Halfway House lies in a romantic hollow, at
the head of Crow Creek, a tributary of Salt
River, which waters Star Valley and finally
joins its waters with Snake River, in its tumul-
tuous rush to the Columbia and the Pacific.
There are three log stables, a cabin where the
stage driver lives, and another log cabin where
travelers camp. There is no woman within
many miles of the place. I stabled and fed my
horses, cooked my supper, and then spread my
blankets on the earthen floor of the unoccu-
pied cabin.

There are really two Star Valleys, the Up-
per Valley and the Lower. Between the two
the hills crowd in to form a short canon. These
valleys are devoted almost wholly to cattle rais-
ing. The altitude is too great and the climate
too cold for any other than hay and grain farm-
ing. Here below the Preuss Range I crossed
the line into Wyoming, in the Upper Valley.
Crow Creek, where it enters the valley, has
developed into a broad stream of considerable
volume.

2M SADDLE AND CAMP

In the Upper Valley I came upon a light
prairie schooner and one forlorn man, who told
me that he and his partner, who were looking
for suitable land to locate and homestead, had
halted for noon, picketed one horse, turned the
two others which they had loose, and while
they were catching trout for dinner the picketed
horse had broken loose and all the horses had
disappeared when they returned from fishing.

He "reckoned th' hull d outfit had lit out

fer Ogden," where they came from, and his
"pardner was chasin' 'em ahoof." I had not
seen them.

At the lower end of the valley are some re-
markable hot springs — quite as remarkable as
some of the lesser ones in Yellowstone Park.
One group of them covers several acres, and
side by side are springs of cold water and boil-
ing water. Steam escapes from several fissures
under considerable pressure and with much
noise.

In the canon between the two valleys, where
the canon widens, a ranchman has run some ir-
rigation ditches, and here I saw a notice of
which the following is an exact literal tran-
scription:

"Parteys or Parson Driven Sheep over this Ditch and Damas it
they Will be Prasicute a carden to Law."

INTO WYOMING 225

Afton is the chief town of the Salt River or
Star valleys, and with a population of five hun-
dred assumes a metropolitan air. I did not
visit it, for I was not searching for metropolitan
centers, though it lay but three miles off my
course. The other half dozen settlements are
small clusters of log cabins chiefly and stamp
the region a frontier. In one of them I met an
old fur trapper named Norwood, who was as-
sembling his outfit preparatory to a winter
trapping campaign along John Grey's River
and among the rugged mountains of the region.

Beaver, so plentiful in John Grey's time, are
now protected by law, and Norwood devotes
his attention to martens, mink, and bear. His
pack horse was standing ready for its load, and
he was to have overtaken me that evening at a
designated point a few miles beyond and we
were to have traveled together to the junction
of John Grey's River with the Snake. But to
my disappointment he had not yet reached the
rendezvous at nine o'clock the following morn-
ing, and I proceeded alone, never to see him
again.

At the junction of John Grey's River with the
Snake River, at the lower end of the Grand
Canon of the Snake, Booth's Ferry, across the
Snake River, is situated. Jackson's Hole may

ZW SADDLE AND CAMP

be entered from the west either by way of the
Grand Canon of the Snake, or farther north
over Teton Pass. I chose the former route as
the least traveled and directed my course down
the lower Star Valley to Booth's Ferry.

This was the third day after crossing the
Preuss Range, and all day, save with a few
brief intermissions, the rain fell in a steady
downpour.

Near midday, thoroughly wet and uncom-
fortable, I forded the strong current of Salt
River, the horses girth-deep, and was glad to
accept the invitation of two young Swedish
shepherds whom I met on the plain beyond, to
dine with them in their dry, warm wagon and
to tarry under its shelter until the heavy down-
pour of rain then in progress had passed. They
had seen me coming, and, hungry for compan-
ionship and news, would scarcely have permit-
ted me to pass without a halt. The canvas
shelter and stove were pleasant indeed, and for
an hour after dinner I lounged and smoked
with them to the tune of pouring rain on the
wagon cover. They had spent the summer
among the lonely and rugged mountain tops at
the head of John Grey's River and were now
heading southward with their flock to winter
on the open desert. In a sparsely-settled coun-

INTO WYOMING 227

try all men are brothers. Conventional re-
straint is thrown aside, and men who have never
before seen each other meet as old acquaint-
ances— as members of one great family.

The lull in the storm was brief, and as I rode
forward the rain resumed and dusk was set-
tling when I at length reached the abrupt and
lofty mountains that I was to penetrate, the bar-
rier through which Snake River forces its way
in the depth of its deep narrow canon, toward
which I had been directing my course after
crossing the Preuss Range. Here stood the
lonely tent of a homesteader and his family,
who had not yet completed the log cabin which
was to be their home. A mile below I reached
Snake River and the ferry. The ferryboat was
on the opposite side of the river — a scow, made
fast to an overhead rope stretched from shore to
shore. It was guided with a tiller, and the cur-
rent furnished motive power to propel it. I
shouted, and presently the ferryman appeared,
crossed the boat for me, and carried me and the
horses safely over. The man's name was Rog-
ers, and he and Booth, two bachelors, lived
here in a little log cabin, with one room and a
loft. It was still pouring rain, and they in-
vited me to stop with them. I accepted, turned
Heart and Button loose to forage, cooked mjr

228 SADDLE AND CAMP

supper on the cabin stove, and spread my blan-
kets on the floor.

I had received many warnings about the trail
through the canon, which was said to be partic-
ularly dangerous. Several horses, I was told,
had fallen from it into the river, hundreds of
feet below. Booth and Rogers confirmed these
stories, particularly with reference to a stretch
known as the Blue Trail. A short time previ-
ously, they told me, a forest ranger's horse had
been lost here, and though very little traveled,
several horses, they asserted, were lost every
year in attempting to cross it. It was described
as only a few inches wide, hanging upon the
edge of a cliff, and of blue clay, which, when
wet, is exceedingly difficult for smooth-shod
horses to keep a footing upon.

Isolated as they were and rarely enjoying any
companionship other than each other's and that
of an amiable dog, my advent was a welcome
break in the monotony of their life. And I was
glad to stay with them, for they were both men
of the early frontier type — a type that one
rarely sees these days and only meets occasion-
ally in such secluded spots as this.

CHAPTER XVI

A LAND OF TRAGIC MEMORIES

ALL night rain fell steadily and it did not
cease until mid-forenoon on the day fol-
lowing my arrival at Booth's Ferry.
Then the sun broke through the clouds to look
upon a drenched world. Booth and Rogers
warned me that it would be foolhardy to ven-
ture into the canon with the treacherous "Blue
Trail" wet and slippery, as it necessarily was
so soon after the storm, and hearkening to their
advice I spent the day with them.

Rogers was an old prospector who had fol-
lowed elusive fortune all his life as the donkey
followed the wisp of hay held before its nose.
Booth was a typical Rocky Mountain prospec-
tor, miner, hunter, and trapper. Fifteen years
before my visit he had established his ferry
and built his cabin at the lower end of the

239

230 SADDLE AND CAMP

Grand Canon of the Snake. Since then he had
hunted and trapped in this and the canon of
John Grey's River, which flows into the Snake
near the ferry. During the summer he and
Rogers operate the ferry and work a salt mine
up Salt River Valley, which Booth discovered
some years ago.

A short distance below the ferry Salt River
empties into Snake River. This is the south
fork of Snake River, known to the old fur
trappers and traders as Mad River, as the north
fork was known as Henry's River. It was here
at the confluence of Salt and Snake Rivers that
a band of Crow Indians on the morning of Sep-
tember 19th, 1 8 12, stampeded the horses of a
party of Astoria trappers under command of
Robert Stuart en route from the Columbia
River to the Missouri, leaving Stuart and his
men afoot in a vast and unknown wilderness.
Stuart burned his outfit, that it might not fall
into the hands of the Indians, reserving only so
much as his men could carry upon their backs,
and boldly set out to walk the remaining dis-
tance and to wrest from the wilderness the food
necessary to keep them alive.

It is easy at this distance to criticize them for
many things they did, as it is always easy to
criticize when the critic has knowledge of facts

A LAND OF TRAGIC MEMORIES 231

the actor did not possess, or does not know of
impelling motives. It is difficult, for instance,
to understand why Stuart made a wide circuit
to the northward in an effort to cross the moun-
tains, instead of passing up the Grand Cafion of
the Snake, ascending Hoback's River, and
crossing thence into the Wind River Valley.
He was looking for the trail followed two years
previously by Wilson P. Hunt, one of the As-
toria partners who had made the overland jour-
ney from the Missouri to the Columbia. This
trail they believed the most feasible for their
purpose.

Hunt had avoided the Grand Canon of the
Snake because he had found the river too tur-
bulent for canoes, and his scouts had reported
the canon impassable for horses. Stuart with
his foot party might easily have ascended the
canon, however, and two days' journey would
have brought him to Hunt's trail on the Ho-
back. But the course he took by a long and
roundabout route led him through a particu-
larly difficult country, resulting in his men be-
ing driven to such extremities that it was once
proposed to draw lots to decide who should
die that the others might eat.

John Grey's River, named for an old Hud-
son's Bay Company trapper, who spent several

232 SADDLE AND CAMP

winters here alone, trapping beaver, brought
vividly to my mind the fearful struggles of
those indomitable pioneers. Could they but
speak, Snake River, the Tetons — every river,
mountain range and plain in this region — might
tell of the heroic deeds and desperate struggles
of those brave men of yesterday.

Booth's cabin stands at the foot of a high,
barren mountain which rises well above tim-
ber line. Sometimes mountain sheep are to be
seen on this mountain from the cabin door.
Some fifty, the remnant of a once large flock,
inhabit the heights. Each year the huntsman's
rifle, however, is diminishing the number, and
very shortly they will be exterminated. These
are the most available sheep for the people of
'Afton and the other settlements of Star Val-
ley, and the few settlers in the valley below the
canon depend very largely upon wild game —
chiefly elk, but occasionally sheep — to supply
their tables with meat. It is usual for settlers
to corn sufficient elk meat to carry them over
the summer.

During the first years that Booth lived here a
herd of about fifteen hundred elk passed down
the canon each autumn, on their way to their
winter range in the Snake River valley below,
and regularly returned in the spring to their

A LAND OF TRAGIC MEMORIES 233

summer ranges in higher altitudes. When the
settler came with his repeating rifle the herd
began noticeably to diminish with each annual
migration, until five years ago its last remnant,
numbering eighty-eight, passed out of the
canon, and no member of it ever returned.

Booth observed and counted these eighty-
eight when they came down the canon and his
curiosity led him to inquire their fate. He
learned definitely where ranchmen had killed
eighty-six of them. The other two apparently
escaped, but no elk have since come out of the
canon or been seen upon the ancient elk range
in the valley.

The rain at our level had been snow in the
higher altitudes. The weather turned cold and
the morning was crisp with frost when I
turned into the canon to resume my journey.
The sun shone brilliantly, and the atmosphere
possessed to a high degree that tonic, transpar-
ent quality so characteristic of Rocky Mountain
regions. These conditions combined to make
the day ideal.

While now and again the trail dropped down
close to the water, for the most part it hung
upon the edge of a steep mountainside or well-
nigh perpendicular cliff several hundred feet
above the rushing river. It was not, however, in

234 SADDLE AND CAMP

any sense a dangerous trail for one using ordi-
nary caution, and I found it from end to end of
the canon well beaten and in good condition.
Once I met a cowboy drifting some cattle down
the canon and had to find foothold for the horses
at the edge of the trail and wait for them to
pass me single file.

My bivouac that night, at the edge of the
pines on a level spot above the Blue Trail, I
recall as one of the most delightful of my jour-
ney. The atmosphere was sweet with the odor
of pines; below me the singing river sparkled in
the starlight; around me rose high canon walls,
dark with clinging timber and fringed at the
top with pine trees standing out in silhouette
where sky and canon rim met. A cozy, cheer-
ful fire gave material comfort, for the night
was cold.

The Grand Canon of the Snake is peculiarly
attractive, and its wild and primitive grandeur
makes it one of the most inspiring and lovely
bits of country in this whole region. The river
holds an abundance of trout, and I can recall
no more ideal spot, comparatively easy of ac-
cess, than this for a camper's and angler's holi-
day.

Above my night's bivouac I passed an aban-
doned placer miner's cabin, not far beyond

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A LAND OF TRAGIC MEMORIES 235

forded the river, and presently came upon the
little log cabin of Jack Davis, an old placer
miner who has lived here alone, washing
gravel, for more than twenty years. For
months at a time no human being passes this
way, and he was glad to see me. He lives
on fish and game mainly, supplemented, when
he has them — and that is not always by any
means — by bacon and flour, which he packs
fifty miles on his back. His claim has never
yielded him more than a scant living, but with
the miner's never-failing optimism he expects
some day to "strike it rich."

All the gravel along the Snake, even high
up on the mountain sides, the length of the
canon, is filled with flake gold. One can find
"color" anywhere, but the flakes are too light
to separate from the gravel by any known proc-
ess. Now and again Jack finds a small nugget,
however, sufficient to keep his courage and
hope alive. And so he will continue digging
and working until life goes out. A chance
passer-by will some day find his poor old body
in the canon, where he and his hopes have died
together. He is now seventy-seven years of age.

Old Jack was frying bacon when I dis-
mounted and stopped for a quarter hour's chat
with him. He urged me to join him at dinner.

236 SADDLE AND CAMP

It was twelve o'clock, he said, "by the sun,"
and I "better stop." My watch verified his
guess, but I excused myself on the plea of short
days and the necessity of taking advantage of
all the daylight to travel. I was well aware
that he had little enough for himself to eat,
without entertaining strangers, and it would
have insulted his sense of hospitality had I even
suggested using my own provisions, for Jack
Davis is a remnant of the early Western fron-
tier.

My trail carried me thence past some steam-
ing sulphur springs and to Hoback's River,
which I forded not far from its junction with
the Snake. This is the lower winter range of
the great elk herds that congregate along the
Snake River valley, through Jackson's Hole, to
the Gros Ventre.

The Hoback is another river that brings viv-
idly to our mind the desperate struggle of the
party of trappers under Mr. Hunt in their over-
land journey to the Columbia. From the sum-
mit of the Wind River Range they had caught
their first view of the giant Tetons which one
of the guides assured them marked the upper
waters of the Columbia. These were their
pilots for many days, and Hunt named them
the "Pilot Knobs." Their course thence car-

A LAND OF TRAGIC MEMORIES 237

ried them across the southern end of the Gros
Ventre Range, on the western slope of which
they encountered a stream flowing to the west-
ward.

This stream Hoback told Mr. Hunt was a
stream upon which he had trapped, and was a
headwater stream of the Columbia. It was
hailed with joy, and following its rugged
course to its junction with the Snake, they felt
that at last their troubles were at an end. The
Snake, or Mad, River, as they afterward called
it, appeared capable of floating their canoes,
and they prepared at once to abandon their
horses and navigate the stream. They forded
the Hoback at the very point where I made my
fording, camped on the Snake a little below
where timber for canoe building was available,
and the Canadian voyageurs set gaily to work to
build the necessary canoes. They had only be-
gun the work when two Snake Indians entering
the camp warned them that the river below
could not be navigated. Scouts despatched
down the canon returned to verify this state-
ment. The river, mad and wild, rushed down
over rocks and between perpendicular walls,
and the canon they claimed was too narrow and
rugged for even the horses to pass through.

The animals were repacked, the party filed

238 SADDLE AND CAMP

down past the sulphur springs to cross Mad
River at the fording place which I found and
where I crossed, almost a hundred years, to a
day, later, worked up and westward over the
rugged Snake River Range, and were launched
upon that fearful journey of hardship and pri-
vation which cost several of the party their
lives.

After fording the Hoback I found a newly-
made wagon road, leading down. This wound
around the summits of the foothills and from
the higher points offered an entrancing view
of the surroundings. Below wound the Snake,
a shimmering ribbon, and all about me rolled a
rugged, tumultuous mass of broken, snow-topped
mountains crowned by the three mighty Tetons
whose bald and jagged summits were the Pilot
Knobs of Hunt a century before.

Descending thence into Jackson's Hole, once
the resort of horse thieves and bad men, now
the home of peaceful, thriving ranchmen, one
night was spent at Cheney, which from its ap-
pearance on the map I expected to find a settle-
ment, but which proved to be a single ranch,
and the following morning I rode into the vil-
lage of Jackson.

CHAPTER XVII

THE GREAT QUESTION IN JACKSON'S HOLE

IT was a Sunday near dinner time when I
reached Jackson and registered at the lit-
tle hotel. Saddled horses stood along the
streets and the hotel office was crowded with
ranchers and cowboys who had ridden in to
spend the day, using the office as a general gath-
ering place and clubroom. After a very good
dinner, at which elk meat was served, I joined
the assemblage in the office, and spent the after-
noon and evening smoking, listening, and as-
similating such information as I could relative
to the attitude of the people toward the game
situation, and the game situation here centers
upon elk.

A group of young men were holding a lively
argument when I entered the hotel office as to
each other's relative attainments as a "bronco

239

240 SADDLE AND CAMP

buster." At a recent gathering all of them had
been unseated by a bull owned by the hotel
keeper, save one man, who had not yet at-
tempted to master the animal. He swaggered
around in hairy chaps, high-heeled boots, and
with a big revolver on his belt. He asked them
to bring the bull out and he would show the de-
feated ones how to ride it. For a time it seemed
as though we were to have an exhibition of wild
bull riding, but the landlord killed our hopes
with the statement that the bull was out on the
range and it would require several hours to
bring him in.

I asked a quiet man next me who the boast-
ful one was.

"Oh, he's a feller works around. He's dig-
gin' a well for a ranchman up here now."

"Why," said I, "I thought from his outfit he
was a cowpuncher."

"What, him!" exclaimed my informant.
"He'd stampede a bunch o' steers with his
yawp. He can bust broncs though. He is
some rider."

A young man, dressed in khaki and evidently
not a native of the valley, had supper with us
in the evening, and I learned that he was the
Reverend Robert M. Beckett, an Episcopal
clergyman stationed in Jackson. From him I

GREAT QUESTION IN JACKSON'S 241

obtained the names of leading guides and chief
citizens of the country. One of the men men-
tioned by him, Mr. S. N. Leek, ranchman, ex-
member of the State legislature, known as a
big-game photographer, and particularly well
known for his active efforts in the interests of
game protection, I had already communicated
with, earlier in the day, with a view to secur-
ing his co-operation. That evening I received
a telephonic invitation, which I accepted, to
visit him the following day at his ranch, that we
might canvass the elk situation together.

The Jackson's Hole country — properly speak-
ing, Jackson's Hole is a restricted, marshy
space near Jackson village — is the winter range
of the largest elk herds on the American conti-
nent. The whole valley, however, which for
convenience I shall refer to as Jackson's Hole,
includes an area approximately forty miles in
length and perhaps ten miles in breadth, and
the herds that accumulate here during early
winter and remain until spring thaws free the
mountains of snow and ice aggregate, at a con-
servative estimate, thirty thousand animals.

A considerable proportion of these, though
by no means all of them, are Yellowstone Park
elk, driven down from the higher altitude of
the park, which lies at an average of some eight

242 SADDLE AND CAMP

thousand to nine thousand feet above the sea,
when the heavy snows to which the park is sub-
ject make winter feeding there impossible.
Others of the elk summer in the Wyoming
State game refuge, south of and adjoining the
park, the remaining few on mountain ranges
lying contiguous to Jackson's Hole.

It was my purpose in visiting Jackson's Hole
to investigate on the ground the conditions pre-
vailing here among the animals; to learn how
far true were reports that great numbers
starved each winter through lack of forage;
and if it should seem that such conditions had
not been overdrawn and that they actually ex-
isted, to learn the cause that led to the condi-
tion, in the hope that some remedy might be
suggested.

That the country and the situation may be
understood, it should be explained that Jack-
son's Hole is hemmed in on all sides by lofty,
precipitous mountain ranges, the most notable
of which are the Tetons, to the west. It is a
fertile basin, and the Snake River and several
tributary creeks and brooks favor it with an
abundance of water. Indeed it has one con-
siderable marshy area so wet even in the driest
season that it produces abundant grass without
artificial irrigation.

GREAT QUESTION IN JACKSON'S 243

Jackson's Hole lies at an altitude of approx-
imately six thousand feet above the sea, and this
high altitude confines its agricultural develop-
ment mainly to hay and grain production,
which makes it naturally a cattle and horse
country, though sufficient of the hardier veg-
etables are grown for home consumption. Stock
being the mainstay of the ranchmen, it is their
custom to maintain as many cattle and horses
as their ranches will support. The nearest
railroad at present is ninety miles from Jack-
son, and during the winter there is but one out-
let— over Teton Pass. According to the 1910
census the population of what is spoken of as
the Jackson's Hole country totaled 889.

Mr. Leek lives three miles below Jackson on
his ranch of four hundred acres. He came to
Jackson's Hole twenty-three years ago and was
therefore among the first of the settlers and has
ever since been intimately associated with its
history and development.

During the succeeding days I saw much of
the lower valley, as Mr. Leek's guest and under
his guidance, and met and interviewed many
of the people, following this with a complete
view of the upper valley and finally visiting
the Gros Ventre region, where it is proposed
to establish a game refuge and winter range.

244 SADDLE AND CAMP

Here Leek and I pitched a tent and remained
three nights, spending the days in the saddle
riding over the surrounding mountains and val-
ley. In this tour I read the sickening story of
the tragedy of the elk, written in bold charac-
ters on every field, on every hill and mountain-
side, and by every brook. It was the one sub-
ject of conversation, and the traveler through
Jackson's Hole cannot avoid it.

At the point where I forded the Hoback the
first indications of dead elk were seen, and all
along the trail from the Hoback to the Gros
Ventre were scattered bones and tufts of hair
of animals that had starved. Bark-stripped
willows and quaking aspens and twigs and
limbs as large as one's fingers, gnawed down by
famished animals in a vain attempt to find sus-
tenance in dead sticks, told the story of misery
and suffering.

On the fields wherever I walked and through
the foothills were the bones of innumerable elk
that had perished within two years. At some
points the bones literally lay in piles about
bunches of willow with gnawed-off limbs and
groves of quaking aspens stripped bare of bark.

Leek told me that there had been times when
he could walk half a mile on the bodies of dead
elk. Others reiterated this statement. One

GREAT QUESTION IN JACKSON'S 245

ranchman was prepared to make an affidavit
that within a small area in the lower end of the
Hole he had actually counted the bodies of
sixteen hundred dead elk, in the spring of 1909.
Another stated that when the snow of that
spring melted two thousand bodies lay within
a radius of one mile of his house. Another
said that within a like radius at another point
he had seen five thousand bodies.

Many other reputable ranchmen, in describ-
ing the awful stench arising in early summer
from the putrefying bodies of dead animals, as-
serted that several families had been compelled
temporarily to abandon their homes, made un-
inhabitable by the odor. Every one told of the
water in early summer, slimy and reeking with
decaying elk flesh and made unwholesome for
man or beast. One ranchman asserted that
within a period of twenty years' residence in
Jackson's Hole he had seen upwards of fifty-
thousand elk perish from starvation.

Let us look at the causes that lead to this
condition. It is an unnatural condition and the
causes are easily traceable, though the reme-
dies may not be so easily administered.

In the year 1872 Congress set aside the Yel-
lowstone National Park, embracing an area of
approximately thirty-six hundred square miles,

246 SADDLE AND CAMP

and later very stringent regulations were put in
force restricting the hunting of any kind or spe-
cies of animal within its boundaries, save of
predatory animals in very particular cases and
under strict observation. This made of Yellow-
stone National Park an ideal game preserve and
refuge, where, under military patrol, it is safe
to say no poaching takes place. Thus was
formed a great breeding ground for animals to
which they could retreat, free from molesta-
tion by their old-time enemy the Indian, or
their new and far more destructive enemy the
white man.

The elk herds of Yellowstone Park and the
contiguous country were large and their annual
increase under normal conditions is about one-
third annually. As previously stated, their
winter ranges in the park were limited to small
and restricted areas, due to the high altitude of
the park, its heavy snows and severe winters.
As the early snows began to deepen upon the
mountains the herds sought lower levels, the
overflow of the limited winter feeding grounds
in the park drifted out and spread over ranges
beyond its borders, those in the south working
their way across the Tetons into Idaho, into
Jackson's Hole, along the Hoback, the Big
Bend of the Green River, and down to the Red

GREAT QUESTION IN JACKSON'S 247

Desert. This wide spread of country supplied
ample forage for them during the severe win-
ter months. Those in the north worked from
the park into available ranges in Montana,
where forage was then also plentiful.

In time the Idaho ranges, the Red Desert and
other outlying ranges were turned over by the
Federal authorities to sheep men, whose flocks
swept them and keep them swept clean of win-
ter forage, until at length only Jackson's Hole
remained to the southern herds, exceedingly in-
significant and most inadequate, as compared
with the one-time extensive and adequate win-
ter ranges. Elk will starve on any range that
sheep have grazed. Let us not forget the fact
that with the elimination of winter ranges the
elk were not proportionately reduced in num-
bers.

In Jackson's Hole nothing but the unyield-
ing position of the settlers, who are determined
that the animals shall not be robbed of this last
range, has kept the sheep men out. I have
never visited a game country where the people
were so unanimously game conservers, so keenly
alive to the value of game and have individu-
ally sacrificed so much for its preservation as
the people of Jackson's Hole.

Their method of excluding the sheep man

248 SADDLE AND CAMP

was forcible and has been effective for a time
at least. Not long ago the Federal authorities
issued permits, it was said, to a sheepman to
graze the open range of Jackson's Hole, and
the sheepman under the permits which he
claimed he held drifted several thousand sheep
across Teton Pass. When he appeared with
his flocks the settlers called an indignation
meeting to devise ways and means of keeping
him out.

A committee was appointed to wait upon
him and advise him to leave quietly and at once.
He told the committee that he was there by
Federal license and intended to stay. The com-
mittee returned and reported, and another com-
mittee was appointed, supplied with ropes, and
instructed to see that no living sheepman or
sheep continued longer than three days on the
Jackson's Hole side of Teton Pass. The com-
mitteemen waited upon the sheepman and ad-
vised him and his herdsmen of their instruc-
tions and their intention of carrying out these
instructions literally. The sheepman saw the
point — and the rope — and discreetly departed.

Thus Jackson's Hole was reserved for the
elk, not by government foresight, but by the
active interference of the settlers, who realized
that the only hope of preserving the animals

GREAT QUESTION IN JACKSON'S M9

from destruction was the exclusion of sheep
from this last remaining range. Sheep would
also have ruined the range for cattle.

The Federal government is, then, to a large
degree responsible for the deplorable present-
day condition of the elk. Our government has
bred and is breeding animals in great numbers
in summer, to turn them out in winter, without
provision, to starve.

CHAPTER XVIII

WYOMING'S RESPONSIBILITY FOR DEAD ELK

THE State of Wyoming is very largely re-
sponsible for the wholesale starvation of
elk which annually takes place within
her borders. While the Federal government
robbed the animals of the original ranges to
which nature adapted them and which would
have provided them with ample pasturage
through the trying months of any ordinary win-
ter, Wyoming has adopted all elk coming with-
in her boundaries as hers, and whenever it has
been suggested has resented Federal or other
interference tending toward their protection,
because of their acknowledged intrinsic value
to her. She has thus placed upon herself the
responsibility of providing them, artificially,
with winter forage. She has brought her elk
to a state of semi-domestication, and just as a

250

WYOMING'S RESPONSIBILITY 251

farmer should provide food for his stock, she
should provide food for her elk.

Very early Wyoming awoke to the fact that
her wild game was one of the most valuable
resources of the State and took wise and praise-
worthy steps for its protection. She was one
of the first, if not the first, of our States to re-
quire non-resident hunters to pay well for the
privilege of hunting big game within her bor-
ders. At the cost of fifty dollars the non-resi-
dent may purchase a big game license allowing
him to kill certain designated animals, includ-
ing one elk, and upon the payment of an addi-
tional fifty dollars, a second as a limit.

Laws were passed providing severe punish-
ment for head and tusk hunters, the latter at
one time invading the game fields and killing
great numbers of bulls for the tusks alone and
in no way utilizing the flesh. They were about
the most unconscionable game killers, worse
even than the old buffalo hunters who killed
for hides, and contributed more than any other
cause to the destruction of elk in regions where
they were once plentiful but are no longer
found.

I have known a pair of tusks, within a year
to sell for forty dollars, and they were un-
mounted and just as taken from the animal.

252 SADDLE AND CAMP

This is a strong incentive for unprincipled men
to kill for tusks, in defiance of law. It would
seem, in view of this indisputable fact, that
secret societies should place an absolute ban
upon all members of the societies in good stand-
ing wearing tusks as ornaments or emblems at
any time.

The restrictions on non-resident hunters,
aimed chiefly at pot hunters from Idaho and
Montana, also had the effect intended and put
an end to the indiscriminate slaughter that pre-
vailed as long as non-residents enjoyed the same
privilege as residents. A limit of two elk was
also placed, with a nominal license fee, upon
resident hunters.

Under these restrictions the already large
herds began to increase, and Wyoming saw
great possibilities ahead. In his annual report
of 1903, the State game warden said:

"If the State of Wyoming will properly hus-
band its game and fish until the building of
new railroads has made our mountain ranges
and trout streams easily accessible, the annual
revenue from these items of natural wealth will,
if wisely managed, equal the income now de-
rived from our domestic stock."

The State bent itself to this end in the most
unreasonable and unbusinesslike manner imagi-

WYOMING'S RESPONSIBILITY 253

nable. Instead of endeavoring to propagate elk
in other regions, capable of supporting consid-
erable herds, it concentrated its attention upon
the already too large and starving herds which
segregated each year in the Jackson's Hole
country, bending its efforts to increase still
further the numbers, but making no provision
to feed or care for these animals in winter when
their range was stripped of forage early in the
season, as it has been for several years, through
overfeeding.

As any lad in the country could have fore-
seen and foretold, this in the natural course of
events led to a largely increased death rate.
Previous even to this time (1903) the elk of this
region had become so numerous as to starve in
such alarming numbers that humanitarians had
been led to suggest Federal interference. Re-
ferring to this, the State game warden took oc-
casion to remark in his report of that year:

"It is to be hoped that our non-resident
friends will allow us to demonstrate our ability
to protect our own property."

The State's method of protecting its own
property was to create a new game refuge south
of and adjoining Yellowstone Park, extending
south from the south boundary of the park to
the mouth of the Buffalo Fork of Snake River,

254 SADDLE AND CAMP

and east from the Idaho-Wyoming State line
to the head of the Yellowstone River, embrac-
ing approximately nine hundred square miles
of territory. In this refuge, as in Yellowstone
Park, many elk find summer range and breed-
ing ground, as they always have; in addition to
this, none of the elk, and none of the elk that in-
vade the territory in their autumnal southward
migration from the park, may be hunted dur-
ing the open season, and therefore hunting is
practically limited to the territory lying be-
tween the refuge and the Gros Ventre and in
the Gros Ventre region, thereby limiting the
annual kill and increasing the animals on the
already largely overstocked ranges.

And so conditions grew worse; fat, sleek
thousands of elk surged into Jackson's Hole in
early winter; a gaunt, spectral band, leaving
hundreds upon hundreds of dead companions
behind them, staggered back to the summer
range in the spring, but on the whole the in-
crease outnumbered the deaths.

In 1908 the State game warden was moved
to assert in his annual report that "These elk
are the most valuable livestock in Wyoming,"
and, continuing, suggested, "It is to be hoped
that our legislature about to assemble will ap-
preciate the importance of prompt action and

WYOMING'S RESPONSIBILITY 255

take the requisite steps to secure a winter range
while these animals are in prime condition."

The winter range suggested, which it was
proposed to make also a game refuge, was the
Gros Ventre River territory, thus adding to the
prohibited hunting country a large part of the
only unrestricted territory which these great
herds now visit during the open hunting season.
This proposition has not as yet been put
through, largely because of the solid opposition
of the residents of Jackson's Hole, who are too
well aware, not only of its inadequacy to re-
lieve the situation, but also of the absolute cer-
tainty that it would make matters even worse
by practically putting a stop to shooting, and
surely result in leaving those few annually
killed, which is far below the yearly increase,
to starve. The setting apart of this refuge,
however, is still a live question.

I rode over this proposed new winter range,
and it appealed to me as so palpably unfitted
for the purpose that I could only wonder at the
proposition. Everyone who knew the country
here voiced this opinion. At present some five
thousand elk attempt to winter on the Gros
Ventre, but the mortality among them is tre-
mendous.

The proposition to set aside this territory in-

256 SADDLE AND CAMP

eluded the suggestion that the few ranchmen
settled here could be induced to relinquish and
abandon their homesteads for a gross sum of
from $40,000 to $50,000, and that the State
could then cut and stack the hay from the irri-
gated ranch meadows, to be fed to the animals
as necessity demanded. It is probable that for
a year or two this would carry the five thousand
elk wintering there at present through the try-
ing period in fairly good shape.

The proposed Gros Ventre refuge lies at a
high altitude, however; its snows are deep, and
the animals would have to be fed regularly in
yards they would make for themselves; at most
but a small part of the herds could be cared for
here, while this new refuge would practically
eliminate hunting and to that extent tend to in-
crease the number of animals and make the
problem of caring for them more difficult each
winter.

Conservative approximate estimates of the
elk in northwestern Wyoming place the number
at 50,000. Those wintering in the Jackson's
Hole country, between the Hoback and the
Gros Ventre rivers, may be placed conserva-
tively at 30,000. Snow lies so deep upon many
sections of Jackson's Hole that herds are forced
to segregate in various separate and limited

WYOMING'S RESPONSIBILITY 257

areas that are more or less wind-swept, and
forage, therefore, to some extent, is uncovered
and available while it lasts. Thus it will be
seen that while the animals have between sixty
and seventy acres per head on the summer
range, when forage is green and plentiful, they
have less than one acre per head in the winter
when forage is withered and of poorer quality
than in the summer and much more difficult to
be reached.

By the middle of January the elk ordinarily
have the range eaten pretty clean and are then
compelled to turn to coarse sticks and bark,
which in the case of grazing animals such as
elk possess small food value. The bark is even
eaten from fence rails. By February first the
elk have grown gaunt and many of them have
fallen into a starving condition; presently the
weaker ones are seen lying down, unable to re-
gain their feet. Thus they remain one, two,
and sometimes three or more days, until a mer-
ciful providence relieves their sufferings.
Thenceforward this pitiful spectacle is con-
stantly before the eyes of the settlers until
spring thaws come and the famished creatures
that have survived the period turn back again
into the hills to regain strength and flesh in a
season of plenty.

258 SADDLE AND CAMP

When the starving period begins the ranch-
men pitch tents or make bivouacs near their
haystacks, and to save the hay for their cattle
are compelled to sleep by the stacks during the
severest months of winter. Sometimes even
then desperate elk charge the stacks and get
some of the hay. It is necessary for the ranch-
men to guard and protect the hay for their do-
mestic stock, else the stock would starve. As
stated previously, this is a stock country and
livestock is the chief dependence of the ranch-
men.

Nevertheless many elk feed with domestic
cattle, and tender-hearted ranchmen not infre-
quently put their stock on short allowance in
order to donate, now and again, a bit of forage
to desperate and starving elk. As an instance,
Mr. Leek fed at his own expense twenty-one elk
during the winter of 1910, and on several oc-
casions animals forced their way into the barn
where he stables his driving horses. It is cus-
tomary for settlers when driving out to stuff as
much hay into their sleighs as can conveniently
be carried and distribute it to weaker animals
in particularly pitiable condition which they
pass along the road.

The winter of 1908-09 was an unusually hard
winter here, and early in January, 1909, Jack-

Looking Toward Mountain Heights Into the Valley of the Gros Ventre.

.. . *-Vf.« i **

Tlie Result of a Slide on the Gros Ventre.

WYOMING'S RESPONSIBILITY 259

son's Hole was stripped of forage. It is prob-
able that the greater part of the herds would
have perished but for the fact that ranchmen
on their own initiative distributed twenty loads
of hay daily to twenty thousand elk. This
barely sufficed to keep the animals alive. The
ranchmen, to be sure, were later recompensed
by the State for the hay, but even so it was to
their disadvantage to take it from their domes-
tic stock, which they were compelled to put on
exceedingly short allowance; and when they
fed the hay they had no guarantee that they
would be paid for it.

Referring to that season, the State game war-
den, in his annual report, says:

"Not many grown elk died, but about fifteen
per cent of the young ones perished. Had noth-
ing been done to relieve the elk, a frightful
loss would have been the result. The prompt
action of the settlers in taking the initiative and
beginning feeding operations and the generos-
ity of the legislature in providing funds deserve
the highest commendation."

The State game warden in his estimate of the
elk that perished, is at wide variance with
every ranchman in Jackson's Hole. I person-
ally interviewed many of the leading residents
and obtained estimates from them of the pro-

260 SADDLE AND CAMP

portion of the herds that perished, and the most
conservative placed the number at not less than
seventy-five per cent of the young, and ten per
cent of the adult, elk. I had but one estimate
as low as ten per cent of the latter, the majority
agreeing that at least fifteen per cent of the
grown animals perished.

Again, in February, 1910, many elk died of
starvation in Jackson's Hole, but a fortunate
thaw cleared the upper ranges in early March,
and not nearly so many were lost as in 1909.

In spite of these lessons which have been re-
peated winter after winter for several years,
Wyoming took no steps to protect her animals
during the winter of 1910-1911, and when the
spring of 191 1 opened the carcasses of starved
animals in untold numbers were strewn over
the valleys and the hillsides.

S. N. Leek wrote me on January 28, 191 1 :

"Last night, coming down from Jackson, I
passed over twenty calf elk lying by the road,
none of them dead yet, but all will be within
a few hours. While traveling in the road,
where the snow is packed, they give out and
drop down. We must drive around them with
our teams, and those who pass throw out little
bunches of hay to them. Some of them are seen
lying with the hay before them, but too far

WYOMING'S RESPONSIBILITY 261

gone to eat it. In a few hours, or days at most,
those that are down now will be dead. What
you saw last fall will not be a fourth of what
you may see next spring. And still the great
State of Wyoming and the Federal government
protect them on a summer range, averaging sev-
enty acres to each animal, where all grazing of
domestic stock is prohibited, and not one acre
each is reserved for them for a winter range.

"I took a photograph from my barn last
evening, showing probably fifty elk, part of
them within the corral, and at the time there
were fifteen hundred head of elk within my
field, all starving. I could feed a hundred or
so, but did I commence I should soon have a
thousand to feed, and I haven't the hay to feed
that many. I feel almost like quitting and let-
ting them all die and have the worry over."

A day or two after writing me the above let-
ter, Leek wrote me again that he had can-
vassed Jackson's Hole to learn how much hay
each ranchman could in safety spare from his
needs for his domestic stock. The previous
summer was one of unusual drought, and Leek
found less than fifty tons of hay available for
elk.

Early in February, 191 1, the State legislature
so far aroused itself from its indifference to the

262 SADDLE AND CAMP

conditions as to vote an emergency fund of
$5,000 to relieve the elk, in response to an ap-
peal from the people of Jackson's Hole. At the
same time the Jackson's Hole and Wyoming
sportsmen made a strong appeal for assistance to
the Federal authorities at Washington which
resulted in an appropriation of $20,000 to be
expended on behalf of the elk. Had these ap-
propriations been made last spring and hay pur-
chased last summer, it would have gone far to-
ward saving the elk, but with no hay obtain-
able at this late day, little could be done. A
meeting was called of all the settlers before this
emergency fund was voted to consider the feasi-
bility of driving their cattle over Teton Pass
to Teton Basin in Idaho, where feed could be
had for them and distributing their hay to starv-
ing elk. To drive the stock in winter over this
trail would have been no small undertaking and
would doubtless have resulted in considerable
loss of stock.

Let us summarize briefly Wyoming's respon-
sibility for the condition: She began early in
her statehood to work for the enlargement of
herds already too numerous for available win-
ter ranges. Not satisfied with the annual in-
crease shown, she established an extensive ref-
uge adjoining Yellowstone Park that the herds

WYOMING'S RESPONSIBILITY 263

might grow as large as possible, in order to net
her a large revenue when railroads open her
game regions to sportsmen. In spite of the
fact that winter ranges are excessively over-
stocked, she proposes to establish still another
refuge in the Gros Ventre.

She makes no provision for winter feeding,
though regularly every year thousands upon
thousands of her elk are dying of starvation.
She resents outside criticism and proposed in-
terference on the part of the Federal govern-
ment, on the ground that she is abundantly able
to take care of her own property, though past
and present conditions prove that she is utterly
unable or unwilling to care for these migratory
animals which she chooses to claim as her own
the moment they enter her territory.

CHAPTER XIX

HOW THE ELK MAY BE SAVED

IT will be seen from the preceding chapters
how serious the elk situation of the Jackson's
Hole country is. How can it be relieved?
What is the remedy? No one wants to lose the
last large herds of elk remaining to us if it is
possible to save them. Humanity demands on
the other hand that the herds be reduced in
size, if they cannot otherwise be provided for
in winter, to a point where the limited ranges
open to them will support them without undue
suffering. The question is, then, can the pres-
ent herds be kept in their entirety and provi-
sion be made against their suffering? I believe
this is possible, though it would not seem wise
to permit further increase, as the limit of num-
bers, in justice to the animals, appears to have
been reached.

264

HOW ELK MAY BE SAVED 265

Though Wyoming claims absolute ownership
of the elk within her borders and puts her
claims above those of the Federal government,
the elk, as well as all the ranges here in ques-
tion, are within United States forest reserves,
including Jackson's Hole. Wyoming in claim-
ing ownership has also asserted and reiterated
that these elk are of greater economic value than
all the domestic livestock in the State, and it is
true that the elk are a source of considerable
revenue to her. It seems, therefore, but just
that some part of the money brought into the
State treasury through the elk should be used
to guard the animals from suffering, particu-
larly in the face of the further fact that it has
been demonstrated that this is feasible. In view
of her claims of ownership and her high valu-
ation of the elk, the country at large is war-
ranted in expecting her to act on ordinary bus-
iness principles and to care for them just as any
farmer would care for his stock, by feeding them
in seasons when the ranges become inadequate
to support them. Thus she might incidentally
prove that she is "able to take care of her own
property without outside interference."

Humanity demands that she do this, or in the
event of her failure to do so that the Federal
government take possession of the herds. In

266 SADDLE AND CAMP

another chapter I said that it was a question
whether or not migrating animals passing from
a reserve in one State to a reserve in another,
but still remaining within the boundaries of re-
serves, should not come under Federal control.
The elk here in question fall within the last
classification, as they have never passed out of
national forest reserves.

Wyoming's assumption of sole responsibility
for the proper care of these animals places her
in the position of a stockman, and a stockman
under similar conditions would do one of three
things: If a certain range contained more ani-
mals than it could support, he would obtain
forage from elsewhere and feed the animals;
or he would sell his surplus stock; or he would
transfer his surplus to other ranges that were
understocked, if he possessed such ranges.

It is not only possible but feasible to feed the
elk, and Wyoming is only deterred from feed-
ing because of the expense entailed, though it
would be comparatively small, adopting instead
a penny wise and pound foolish policy.

During the haying season ranchmen in Jack-
son's Hole are willing to sell the State consid-
erable quantities of hay at from four to five dol-
lars per ton, and enough could be had at this
price, economically dispensed, to carry the elk

HOW ELK MAY BE SAVED 267

over the season of stress. It would be neces-
sary to arrange with the ranchmen for the hay
in summer, that they might have ample time to
drive their cattle over the Teton Pass, or make
other winter provision for them. It has been
claimed that the ranchmen demand of the State
excessive prices for hay. I was assured that
the price above named would be the limit of
demand, and surely, with the average ruling
price of hay elsewhere throughout the country
about eighteen dollars a ton, five dollars can-
not be characterized as excessive. Hay thus
purchased could be held in reserve for time of
need and would meet all requirements, but Wy-
oming has never put aside one ton of hay to
meet an emergency certain to arise.

In my description of Jackson's Hole I re-
ferred to a marshy area supporting a good
growth of grass. This area contains about three
thousand acres and is easily good for at least
one ton of hay per acre. The greater part of
the marsh is owned by private individuals, but
it could be acquired by the State by reimburs-
ing the owners for the slight improvements they
have made upon it. The hay thus obtained
would cost the State very little and might be
held as a reserve to meet emergencies.

While under normal and healthful conditions

268 SADDLE AND CAMP

the annual increase among the elk of north-
western Wyoming should be considerably
greater than at present, it is, conservatively
estimated, about five thousand. The total num-
ber of elk killed annually in the State averages
one thousand. If the cost of present non-resi-
dent licenses was reduced from fifty dollars to
twenty-five dollars, allowing the hunter to kill
one elk, with an additional charge of twenty-
five dollars for a second elk, it is probable that
many more non-resident hunters would upon
these reduced terms visit the State, with the re-
sult that an additional thousand elk would be
killed.

This would in no case tend to reduce the size
of present herds, but it would prevent an an-
nual increase too large to control, which would
result if wholesale starvation were stopped
through feeding. It would produce to the
State a revenue so considerable that even in her
stingiest mood Wyoming might be moved to
apply a small proportion of it to the purchase
of sufficient hay to keep the elk in good con-
dition through any ordinary, or, for that mat-
ter, extraordinary winter.

This proposition, I am aware, will be hailed
with horror by those who object under any con-
ditions to killing wild animals, but it is better

HOW ELK MAY BE SAVED 269

to kill the elk than to starve them, and hu-
manity here demands some such course. No
stockman in the world would attempt to main-
tain a hundred steers on a range that would not
support seventy. We must not permit the sen-
timental point of view to overtop the practical.

On the other hand, Wyoming has consider-
able ranges in other sections of the State far un-
derstocked. Wherever this is the case a perma-
nent close season should be established and
maintained until the ranges are fairly well
stocked. The idea of game protection is to
stock ranges that are adapted to animals, but
not overstock them, and when conditions war-
rant, to permit hunting, but not to so great an
extent as to kill each year beyond the annual
increase.

In view of the fact that Wyoming considers
her elk of greater value than the domestic sheep
now occupying the old desert ranges of the elk
to the latter's exclusion, it is a pity that the Fed-
eral government ever permitted the sheep to
ruin the ranges. What shift the Federal au-
thorities expected their Yellowstone Park elk
to make when they did this is hard to imagine,
if indeed they ever gave the park elk a thought.

No one understanding the true meaning of
game preservation can be in the least in sym-

270 SADDLE AND CAMP

pathy with the exclusion of settlers from terri-
tory for the sole purpose of propagating game.
This would retard civilization, and no one
wishes that. But if desert lands not adapted to
settlement are more valuable as elk pasture
than sheep pasture, as Wyoming has asserted,
particularly when other and ample unoccupied
ranges are open to sheep, humanity and good
policy both demand that elk ranges be reserved
for elk.

Last year Wyoming took thirty-six domesti-
cated elk from Jackson's Hole to the Big Horn
refuge. This refuge would accommodate thou-
sands, and the Medicine Bow range also offers
admirable opportunity. The transportation of
elk has been proved by experiment to be per-
fectly feasible. In his report of 1907 the State
game warden of Wyoming states:

"It has been well demonstrated that young
elk may be captured in the Jackson's Hole
country — in winter time — with cheapness and
safety. They are enticed into enclosures by
means of hay and fed until in suitable condi-
tion to move. In years past, when there were
no restrictions upon the capture of game, I have
known scores of young elk to be hauled ninety
miles by wagon, and then shipped by rail to
New York, with practically no resultant loss."

Li-

ra

UJ

"o

c
o

UJ

HOW ELK MAY BE SAVED 271

And in his report for 1910 he says: "Experi-
ence during the past two winters has demon-
strated that it is entirely feasible to shift large
bands of elk from one locality to another. In
the late fall or early winter, I am well con-
vinced that a thousand — or more — elk could be
gradually driven, or 'drifted' from the Buffalo
Fork or Spread Creek country east to the heads
of Wind River; and thence, later, half, or more
of them, could be driven across the intervening
country to the Big Horn Mountains. Such
transfer could be made at one-tenth the cost of
capture and shipment, and would tend to re-
lieve the Jackson's Hole ranges. I trust that
my successor will be authorized to at least try
the experiment.

"If elk were protected for ten years in Car-
bon County, it would well be worth the cost to
ship and liberate a car-load of young elk in the
Medicine Bow Mountains. This is an ideal
big game country, and with proper protection,
the elk would increase rapidly, eventually dis-
tributing themselves over the entire Medicine
Bow range."

If the State of Wyoming is truly interested
in the preservation and propagation of big
game, as her State game warden has repeatedly
asserted in his annual reports, she could, with-

m SADDLE AND CAMP

out expense and without appreciable loss to
herself, permit other States to capture young
elk that would otherwise starve, to stock adapt-
able ranges in these other States. The number
to be captured and transported could be agreed
upon, and it would be but just that the State
receiving the elk give Wyoming a guarantee of
a permanent closed season and of proper pro-
tection for the animals.

It is certainly up to Wyoming to take some
steps toward the proper protection of her elk.
If she does not do so promptly and continues
to permit wholesale starving, the Federal au-
thorities should take the matter in hand. If an
individual were to treat one cow as cruelly as
Wyoming annually treats thousands of elk, his
neighbors would raise a howl of horror and the
humane societies would lose no time in setting
legal machinery in motion to have him severely
punished. How long will the Federal govern-
ment permit this condition to continue? Is it
not after all a condition that calls for Federal
control? The bulk of the elk that suffer are
nurtured and reared in Yellowstone National
Park under Federal supervision and are tran-
sient residents of the ranges outside the park
boundaries.

Every citizen of the United States, therefore,

HOW ELK MAY BE SAVED 273

whether a resident of Wyoming or not, has an
individual and personal interest in their wel-
fare, as he has in all wild animals which in-
habit our national parks or public lands outside
the parks. But we are inclined to neglect the
things that we do not see. Let visitors to Cen-
tral Park, New York City, trample and de-
stroy a bit of grass, and the newspapers set up
a loud cry of distress; let several thousand noble
elk, in which every citizen has an interest, be
starved to death by slow torture and neglect,
and the newspapers devote a half dozen lines
to it. Let Reggie Moneybags wed Miss Gwen-
dolyn Sillypate, and the newspapers devote at
least two columns to the function, though
neither of these twain ever did a useful thing in
their precious lives; and when they are di-
vorced a year later in Reno other columns are
devoted to them; and still other columns when
they each choose new matrimonial partners at
the lapse of another month or so.

But morbid curiosity must be satisfied, even
though the valuable space spent in gratifying it
excludes news of real importance — and the
wholesale starvation of elk in February, 191 1,
was a matter of real importance to the people
of the country, though our papers gave it no no-
tice generally, or at most scant reference. News-

274 SADDLE AND CAMP

papers are our great educators and moulders of
public opinion. Let them once take up the
matter of starving elk, and very quickly public
opinion will drive our Federal and State au-
thorities to solve the question and stop the
wholesale torturing by starvation that has been
going on for years.

Well-meaning people support at consider-
able expense hospitals for indigent and way-
worn cats, in such cities as New York. If these
well-meaning people would chloroform their
indigent Tommies and spend their money to
purchase hay for starving elk, or in a campaign
to arouse public opinion in behalf of the starv-
ing herds, they would be doing a worthy serv-
ice for dumb creatures.

CHAPTER XX

SHEEP, ANTELOPE, AND MOOSE

LEEK chose a romantic spot for our camp
in the Gros Ventre valley under the lee
of a grassy knoll, close to the river. A
grove of fragrant fir trees was at our back, and
directly across the river a precipitous mountain
rose to lofty heights. Here we were encamped
for three nights, spending our days in the
saddle.

As previously stated, this is the upper winter
range of the Jackson's Hole elk, and here, as in
the lower valley, though to a smaller extent, for
fewer elk winter here than there, we found the
remains of many animals that had perished.
Leek found one old head with a sixty-three-inch
spread and measuring sixty inches along the
outside of the horn. This was not a record
head, but close to the largest bona fide head

875

276 SADDLE AND CAMP

extant, for it must be remembered that some of
those that at one time passed as record heads of
enormous proportions had been spliced.

This, too, is a good mountain-sheep country
and several are killed each year on Sheep
Mountain, on the mountain opposite our camp,
and on others of the higher peaks near-by. In-
deed, an old buck came down to the river not
more than four hundred yards below us while
we were camped there.

In a previous chapter it was stated that Wy-
oming probably has five hundred of the ap-
proximately seven thousand sheep remaining in
the United States. Of these five hundred one
hundred inhabit the Tetons. On the west side
of the Tetons domestic sheep are invading the
lower edge of the mountain-sheep range, with
the result that scab has appeared among the
latter. The statement that the sheep are in-
fected is based upon reports made me by two
sportsmen who killed sheep here during the
open season preceding my visit, both of whom
had killed infected animals. It would seem,
therefore, that there is no question that the
mountain sheep are infected, but how far the
infection has spread it is at present impossible
to say. It is not difficult, however, to prophesy
the result. A few years ago some of Wyoming

SHEEP, ANTELOPE, AND MOOSE 277

sheep were badly infected, resulting in con-
siderable mortality, but it was believed and
hoped that the disease had run its course.

The number of mountain sheep killed each
year by hunters in Wyoming, in conjunction
with those destroyed by predatory animals, is
beyond doubt considerably in excess of the in-
crease* and with the Teton sheep infected with
scab it would seem the part of wisdom for the
State to follow Colorado's example and for a
few years, at least, absolutely prohibit hunting.

Formerly there were considerable numbers
of antelope in northwestern Wyoming. Though
the warning was sounded that they were rap-
idly decreasing in numbers, hunting was per-
mitted until 1909, and as a result antelope have
practically disappeared from northwestern Wy-
oming.

The State game warden of Wyoming asserts:
"Some parts of the State show a decided in-
crease of deer, and it is safe to assert that Wy-
oming has as many — or more — deer now than
it had five years ago." My investigations as to
deer were not so thorough in Wyoming as I
had hoped to make them, but the reports re-
ceived, taking the State as a whole, bear out
the game warden's assertion. There is no
doubt deer are fairly numerous, though, scat-

278 SADDLE AND CAMP

tered as they are over a wide territory, no ap-
proximation of the number could be made with
any degree of accuracy.

What is known as the Gros Ventre "slide" is
situated some two miles above the place where
we were camped. This is a section of mountain
perhaps one mile wide and extending up the
mountain side five miles, which is gradually
changing its position and sliding down toward
the river gorge. The first movement was no-
ticed in 1907, and though the mountain side is
sliding too slowly to be noticeable to the naked
eye, save by the constant rolling of pebbles, or
the trickling of gravel upon slopes, the area
affected now has the appearance of having been
shaken by a terrific earthquake. Trees have
been rolled under; crevasses fifteen feet deep
have opened; high pressure ridges have
formed; in level places ponds have been filled
and other ponds formed; and the Gros Ventre
River, at the foot of the slide, has been pushed
out of its old channel and against the base of a
precipitous mountain opposite.

The slide is indeed pushing against this other
mountain, gradually raising the river and form-
ing a lake above, where none formerly existed.
Above the river gorge, formed by the slide on
one side and the mountain on the other, is a

SHEEP, ANTELOPE, AND MOOSE 279

large basin, and the prospect is that this basin
will ultimately become a lake of considerable
proportions. The river is very muddy below
the slide, and one morning while we were
camped there we found it had fallen nearly
three inches, the result of a large body of earth
having been rushed into it by the slide.

From our rendezvous on the Gros Ventre my
route lay down the Gros Ventre to Slate Creek,
thence up Slate Creek, over Mt. Leidy ridge
past Leidy Lake, down to Spread Creek, over
another ridge past Lilly Lake to the Buffalo
Fork, and thence northward through the Wy-
oming game refuge to Yellowstone National
Park, which I was to enter at Snake River sta-
tion and traverse its width northward to Gardi-
ner, Montana.

Leek kept me company to Mt. Leidy. On
Slate Creek we passed a soldiers' camp, where
Captain Dow and Lieutenant Rierdon, with
half a dozen privates, made their headquarters
while mapping mountain trails for military
purposes. Beyond a maze of fallen timber on
the slope of Mt. Leidy Leek turned back, to
return to his camp on the Gros Ventre, while I
rose to the summit of the pass, covered with the
snow of recent storms. The last reach of the
ascent was abrupt and there was no trail to fol-

280 SADDLE AND CAMP

low, but once at the top I was treated to a mag-
nificent panoramic view of the valley I had
just left.

Far beneath me the silver thread of Slate
Creek wound down to join the Gros Ventre.
Beyond the Gros Ventre rose Sheep Mountain
with other mountains and lofty ranges beyond,
in a mighty tumbled mass, some of them, like
Mt. Leidy, where I stood, partially covered
with fir and the summits of all of them white
with snow.

On the opposite side of the ridge I dropped
down past Lake Leidy, a beautiful bit of water
romantically situated among the fir-clad peaks.
In the descent from Leidy Lake to Spread
Creek were the tracks of a large band of elk,
chiefly cows and calves, with unmistakable
signs that the animals had been driven. The
tracks were fresh— not above a few hours old.
That evening I was startled by the bugle call
of an elk. It surprised me, for this was late
in the season for bulls to be bugling.

The weather was growing cold. Spread
Creek, where the water was not too swift, froze
hard that night, and the earth became like flint.
My course carried me down the creek for some
distance, over a low ridge, and thence across
the north branch of Spread Creek, which I

SHEEP, ANTELOPE, AND MOOSE 281

reached during the following forenoon. I
aimed to come out at Lilly Lake — which is, in
fact, only a small pond — thence cross another
ridge, make past a butte Leek had described to
me, and strike for a ford of the Buffalo, on the
opposite side of which is an old military road
leading into the direct route to the southern en-
trance of Yellowstone Park.

In emerging from the timber to descend into
the gorge of the north branch, I descried some
tents on a hill opposite and to the right, and
upon riding up to them found it to be the camp
of Roy McBride, a Jackson's Hole guide, who
with three assistants, had an Englishman and
his wife on a hunting trip — a "dude outfit," as
one of the men put it.

Travelers here are classified as "dudes,"
"sage brushers," or "rough necks." Anyone
who travels or hunts with a guide is a "dude,"
no matter how rough or unkempt his personal
appearance. Those who travel with wagons
on beaten roads, camping in more or less com-
fort with the paraphernalia they are able to
carry in this way, are "sage brushers." A horse-
back traveler, doing his own cooking and camp
work, unassisted by a guide and in fact rough-
ing it in the true sense, is a "rough neck" — that
is, one traveling as the people of the country

282 SADDLE AND CAMP

travel. They do not consider that a man is
roughing it who has a guide to care for him and
his camp equipment, nor one who travels by
wagon on beaten roads. This classification ex-
tends over Yellowstone Park as well as the sur-
rounding region.

McBride's "dudes" were a Mr. and Mrs.
Henderson, who had come from England to
secure elk trophies. I was introduced to them
and accepted McBride's invitation to remain to
dinner. Mr. Henderson, as well as others of
the party, informed me that they had seen sol-
diers firing indiscriminately into herds of cow
and calf elk and were certain some of the cows
had been killed. McBride had no doubt the
animals whose tracks I had seen between Leidy
Lake and Spread Creek had been driven by
soldiers.

It was mid-afternoon when I remounted and
turned past Lilly Lake, riding now in forest,
now in open, with no definite trail but taking
the general direction in which, according to my
map, the Buffalo Fork lay. Once crossing a
knoll I discovered some elk feeding in a hollow.
I swung behind another knoll and approached
unobserved within fifty yards of them before
they saw me. Then one of them raised its head,
took a good look at me, surprise and wonder in

SHEEP, ANTELOPE, AND MOOSE 283

his eyes, and with the whole bunch broke for
the cover of near-by timber.

This was shortly before sunset, and when
darkness came I had not yet made out my land-
mark, the butte. A strong west wind had
sprung up and the evening grew raw. I had
hoped to make Buffalo Fork before camping
and rode a full hour after dark. The woods
were so thick, however, that it was difficult
to pick a route in the darkness, and when at
length I came upon a grassy, open hollow, I
unpacked in the lee of the timber skirting it
and turned the horses loose to graze.

I rarely troubled to pitch my tent, and a fire
made the shelter of the trees so comfortable
that after supper and a pipe I rolled in my
blanket under the sky. Snow on my face roused
me during the night and I drew my poncho
over me, not to awaken until dawn. Five
inches of snow covered me, and I made coffee
that morning from melted snow.

Saddling and packing was but just accom-
plished when the storm resumed and the snow
fell so thick that I could scarcely see a hundred
yards. Shortly after starting I crossed two elk
tracks, and the track of a big timber wolf,
doubtless following the elk, but saw nothing of
the animals. It is said that wolves are increas-

284 SADDLE AND CAMP

ing rapidly in numbers in the game refuge just
north of this, where all hunting is prohibited.

Presently the snow ceased, the clouds scat-
tered, and the sun broke out with blinding, daz-
zling brilliancy. At my feet, and below the
snow line, lay the valley of the Buffalo, beyond
it the timbered stretches of the State game re-
serve, to the westward through a purple haze
the majestic Tetons, raising their jagged peaks
high above the surrounding landscape.

The snow balled on the horses' feet, causing
them to slip and slide badly in the descent to
the valley, and I was glad to reach bare ground
again. They had been on short rations before,
and the night's snow had covered the grass so
deeply that their breakfast had been light that
morning. Therefore when I came to the cabin
of Charles Neil, an old trapper, shortly after
fording the Buffalo and learned he had oats and
hay, I halted for the day.

Neil has been a fur trapper for more than
thirty years and for the early season had a good
showing of fall pelts, indicating that some fur-
bearing animals still survive here. Mink and
muskrat were chief among his catch.

The road northward to Yellowstone Park
was through a romantic and picturesque region.
To the left lay the Tetons, rising bleak and rug-

SHEEP, ANTELOPE, AND MOOSE 285

ged, their glacier stubs gleaming white in the
sunlight, and the atmosphere bore the perfume
of the pine and fir forest spreading far away in
every direction.

This is a magnificent game cover and refuge.
It is the sanctuary of Wyoming's moose, num-
bering now about four hundred. While any
considerable number of elk would starve here
in the winter, it is an ideal winter as well as
summer range for moose and deer, both of
which are browsing animals, while the elk nor-
mally is not. In connection with Yellowstone
Park it offers a wide area of protection to bear,
fur-bearing animals, and game birds.

This moose herd has been built up from an
insignificant beginning to its present propor-
tions during the past ten years. The close sea-
son will end in Wyoming in 191 2, unless it is
extended, and it is hardly to be supposed that
the legislature will do otherwise than extend it,
for one year's hunting would put a setback upon
the moose that would spoil the work of those
ten years.

There is some poaching on the refuge, but
not a great deal. Two weeks before I passed
through it, an army wagon was overturned on a
rough bit of road. A mounted lieutenant, with
two soldiers, escorted the wagon. A forest

286 SADDLE AND CAMP

ranger, happening along, dismounted to assist
the driver and soldiers in righting the wagon
and to his surprise discovered in the cargo
which had rolled out upon the ground the head
and part of the carcass of a freshly killed moose.
The forest ranger put the lieutenant and his
men under arrest, and when they were haled
before a magistrate it developed that the lieu-
tenant was already under bond to appear in
answer to a charge of killing ducks within the
prohibited bounds of the refuge.

The scenery through this whole region is
particularly impressive. Since entering the
Jackson's Hole region the Tetons — the Pilot
Knobs of the fur traders — had remained within
view, towering above the surrounding land-
scape in rugged and lonely grandeur. Since
fording the Buffalo Fork my trail had carried
me through a continuous forest, and for a few
miles along beautiful Jackson Lake, whose
placid waters reach from fir-clad shores to the
very base of the mighty Tetons.

The sun was setting when I passed here, and
I rode out upon a bluff overlooking the water
to see it drop behind the Grand Teton with an
effect of marvelous beauty. The three peaks
were enveloped in a halo of dazzling bright-
ness which presently gave way to a flood of

SHEEP, ANTELOPE, AND MOOSE 287

lurid red, reflected by the mirror-like waters of
the lake at my feet. On the near side of the
mountains, between the fiery glow above and
the red-stained water below, lay a bank of dark
purple, shading off on its outer edges to lighter
hues. Overhead were great streaks of purple
and orange, reaching out to the azure zenith.

At three o'clock on the day after leaving
Neil's cabin I was halted by a soldier at the
Snake River entrance to Yellowstone Park.

CHAPTER XXI

THE END OF THE TRAIL

I WAS anxious to cross the high altitudes of
the Continental Divide as quickly as possi-
ble, for winter had already set in, and
heavy snows were now to be expected. Any
morning was likely to dawn with one of the ter-
rific blizzards characteristic of the region,
which would stop all travel save on snowshoes.
The park's season for visitors was closed, how-
ever, and red tape held me at the soldiers' sta-
tion at Snake River until near midday follow-
ing my arrival, when I was permitted to pro-
ceed. That morning the thermometer regis-
tered twenty-two degrees of frost. The ground
was covered with snow of a previous storm
when I crossed the Continental Divide on the
day I left Snake River station and ice did not
melt there even at midday.

288

THE END OF THE TRAIL 289

The expected snow began on the morning of
my third day in the park and fell pretty steadily
for a day and a half. Hayden Valley was very
bleak, with snow blowing thick in my face and
the wind cold and penetrating. Once or twice
I met mounted troopers and north of the Yel-
lowstone Canon several freighters with wagon
loads of material for the new hotel at the canon.
Otherwise the park was quite deserted save by
the regular details of soldiers at the stations,
where I halted to register, and some emi-
grants bound for Alberta, who were encamped
for the night at Norris Basin, when I passed
there.

Few animals were to be seen. Once I saw a
bear, once a fearless coyote trotted for a mile
or two in front of me, innumerable waterfowl
lined the Yellowstone River, and beyond Nor-
ris Basin I encountered several deer. Between
Norris Basin and Mammoth Hot Springs I met
government scouts McBride and Brown, and
we dismounted to light a fire and discuss for
an hour the game situation, and particularly
the condition of park game.

Once I halted to extinguish a blaze, started
doubtless by transportation company teamsters
who had stopped for luncheon and had failed
to scatter their fire. The wind had carried the

290 SADDLE AND CAMP

embers to the edge of a mass of dead fallen
timber and but for my opportune passing con-
siderable destruction might have resulted.

It was dusk when I reached Mammoth Hot
Springs. The sky was heavily clouded, and
when I entered the canon below the Springs
darkness was so intense I could not see Heart's
ears from my seat in the saddle. The river
roared at my side, but was wholly invisible,
and I had to depend upon the instinct of the
horses to keep the road. When I dropped
during the afternoon below 7,500 feet altitude
I had left the snow behind, and here the footing
was dry and hard and traveling, even in the
heavy darkness, quite free from danger.

At eight o'clock I reached the park gate,
only to find it closed. A soldier on guard at the
station declined to open it and permit me to
pass, on the ground that it was against orders
to open the gate after seven o'clock. Some ar-
gument, however, finally persuaded him to do
so, and half an hour later Heart and Button
were feeding in a comfortable stable in Gar-
diner, Montana, and I was enjoying my supper
at a hotel.

Here I fell in with Deputy Game Wardens
P. W. Nelson and Henry Ferguson, who had
just brought in a poacher charged with killing

THE END OF THE TRAIL 291

moose. The next morning, in company with
Nelson, I crossed into the park to view some
immense stacks of hay that had been standing
here, unused and rotting, for years, with the
bones of elk that had starved to death the previ-
ous winter scattered about the stacks.

Late in the afternoon I resumed the trail and
the following evening, after dark, rode into Em-
igrant in a snow squall. The next afternoon I
saddled Button, left Heart to rest in a stable,
and rode north to see Henry Lambert, an old-
time guide, rancher, and pioneer, whose ranch
lies twenty miles from Emigrant. I had been
directed to turn into the first lane to the right,
after passing a small church, and to follow the
lane up a canon. It was dusk when I passed
the church and found the first lane, and dark
before I reached the canon. The lane road had
petered out into a path, and when I entered the
canon there was no indication that it was in-
habited. Neither trail nor surroundings could
be seen, and I turned back to make inquiries at
a cottage near the church. A clerical-looking
individual answered my knock.

"Can you direct me," I inquired, "to Henry
Lambert's ranch?"

"I can direct you, sir," said he, "but Mr.
Lambert's ranch would be difficult to find at

292 SADDLE AND CAMP

night unless you are quite familiar with the

»i

country

"I've never been here before."

"Then, sir, you could scarcely hope to find
the ranch in the darkness with any directions
I might give you."

"Could I get accommodations for the night
for myself and pony with you or probably at
some ranch?"

"No one here, sir, accommodates strangers
at night."

At this juncture a gruff voice within shouted:
"He kin bunk with me."

"One of my neighbors who is paying me a
call," said the clerical gentleman, "offers you
accommodations, sir, with him."

A tall, powerfully built man joined us. He
was rough in appearance and a real frontier
type.

"Yep," said he, "I'm bachin' over here. Glad
t' have you."

As we walked over and I led Button to a lit-
tle log cabin not far away, I inquired, "Are
you one of the dominie's parishioners?"

"What's them?" he asked.

"Do you attend his church?"

"Nope. Don't go to no church. I ain't much
on churches and religion."

THE END OF THE TRAIL 293

When Button was made snug we entered the
cabin, and I stood in the door while he lighted
a bit of rag floating in oil in a tin dish. The
weird flicker displayed a very filthy room with
a cook stove in which a wood fire burned.

"Now make yourself t' home," he exclaimed.
"Mighty glad to have you come. I get plumb
lonesome here sometimes. That's why I was
over t' th' preacher's. I reckon you'd like a
cup of coffee," he continued, immersing a fin-
ger in a tomato can on the stove to test the tem-
perature of the coffee it contained. "Set up t'
th' table and have a bite."

With a finger he wiped the stale grounds
from an enameled cup, filled it with coffee, set
out some bread, and I accepted his hospitality.
Bill, he told me, was his name, and Bill, to say
the least, was as eccentric as he was hospitable.
We sat until midnight, while he related blood-
curdling tales of personal experiences and ad-
ventures with Indians and wild animals.

"Why," said Bill, waving his arms in wild
gestures, "maybe you wouldn't believe it, but
I've spent a hull year t' a slap out on th' plains
killing buffalo fer hides, without ever clappin'
eyes on a petticoat."

I had brought neither blanket nor baggage,
from Emigrant, and my bed that night was

294. SADDLE AND CAMP

under the same dirty quilts with Bill, upon a
dirty mattress on the floor alongside the stove.
Bill talked in his sleep, waved his arms, and
now and again gave mighty kicks, but on the
whole I slept fairly well.

At dawn I fed Button, and when he had
eaten, bade my friend Bill adieu, with thanks,
and in due course reached Lambert's ranch,
where Mr. and Mrs. Lambert gave me a true
Western greeting and I enjoyed a breakfast of
fried grouse, with home-made jelly. When I
told them where I had spent the night, Mrs.
Lambert held up her hands in horror and ex-
claimed:

"Of all places! With crazy Bill! Why, he
escaped from an asylum not long ago and he's
hiding up there. He's a lunatic!"

"Never mind," said I, "Bill took me, a stran-
ger, into his cabin and gave me the best he had
— and told me some good yarns."

In a previous chapter, discussing the elk situ-
ation in Jackson's Hole, it was stated that large
numbers of park elk range in Montana, north
of the park. Mr. Amos Hague, of Emigrant,
who perhaps more than anyone else on the
Montana side has been active in efforts to bet-
ter the condition of the animals, had written me
that elk were starving here in great numbers

THE END OF THE TRAIL 295

every year because of depleted ranges. Every
one whom I interviewed hereabouts — hunters,
guides, game wardens, and park scouts — made
similar statements, and all traced the mortality
among animals to the one cause — overstocking
the ranges with domestic sheep. This, it was
asserted, had resulted not only in the destruc-
tion of thousands of elk, but of large numbers
of park antelope as well.

"The country in question," Mr. Hague
wrote, "is in the forest reserve, east of the Yel-
lowstone River and in extent is seventy-five or
eighty miles long by twenty-five miles wide and
adjoins Yellowstone Park on the north. In
this territory there are now between 50,000 and
60,000 head of sheep."

He also stated that in early spring of that
year (1910) he passed through this region and
saw great numbers of elk and deer, which had
come out of the park, feeding in the valleys and
on the mountainsides. A few weeks later — in
July — he returned through the same region and
saw not one elk or deer, but did see the valleys
and mountains covered with domestic sheep.
During the course of this journey Mr. Hague
passed the decaying carcasses of a large number
of elk that had starved to death. One of the
shepherds took the trouble to count the elk car-

296 SADDLE AND CAMP

casses on an area containing somewhat less than
forty acres and found seventy-five.

Unfortunately the region to which this ref-
erence was made, which lies in the Gallatin
and Absaroka National Forest Reserves, was
covered with snow when I reached Montana.
The sheep had been driven off for the winter
and the carcasses of the dead elk were hidden
under the snow. It was therefore quite fruit-
less for me to attempt to learn anything at this
time from a personal inspection of the ranges,
and I was forced to confine my investigation to
interviewing people, like Mr. Hague, familiar
with the ground and the conditions.

In addition to the charge that excessive num-
bers of sheep were permitted to graze where no
sheep should be allowed, resulting in wholesale
starvation of animals, the additional charge was
made that this condition was to no small ex-
tent the result of graft. Before a sheepman can
take his flocks upon a public range he must
make application to the Federal authorities for
a license to graze a designated number of sheep
in a designated district. It was charged that
the sheepman "sees" the forest ranger or inspec-
tor patrolling the district which it is desired to
enter; the ranger, his conscience having been
duly quieted, reports that there is ample pas-

THE END OF THE TRAIL 297

turage for an estimated number of sheep al-
ways in excess of the number for which the
sheep man has asked license. The license is
duly granted, and on the strength of it usually
a greater number of sheep than the license calls
for are run in, and not infrequently a friend's
sheep as well.

The result can easily be imagined. The
range is stripped utterly, before snow falls, of
every vestige of grass and small browse, and
when the elk and antelope come down from the
park nothing remains for them to eat and they
starve by thousands.

The unbiased observer is forced to arrive at
one of two conclusions. First: Either the
rangers or other inspectors, who report these
ranges capable of supporting thousands of
sheep without doing injury to the park animals
which rely upon them for forage, are grossly
incompetent and unfit for their positions; or,
second: that the charge of graft is true and they
are bribed to report these favorable conditions
by the sheepmen. If they are incompetent their
superior officers who employ them are directly
responsible for employing or keeping in service
incompetent men.

If this were the only unoccupied public
range where domestic sheep could graze, it

298 SADDLE AND CAMP

might be argued that the sheep are of greater
value to the country than wild animals. But
this is not the case. There are thousands of
square miles of unoccupied public ranges else-
where where the sheep barons might take their
flocks and leave these ranges to the animals to
which they belong, and this without the slight-
est loss to the country at large. But it would
inconvenience the sheep barons to do this, and
the Federal authorities with the utmost docil-
ity appear to have surrendered everything to the
sheep men.

In the spring of 191 1 the carcasses of more
than one thousand elk that had starved to death
during the previous winter lay along the Yel-
lowstone River within a distance of twenty-one
miles north of Gardiner. I have been unable
to get even an approximate estimate of the large
number of animals that perished during the
winter east of the Yellowstone and north of
the park, but the starvation rate was horrible.
Reports from the western part of Gallatin
County and in Madison County, west to the
Madison River, including the territory north
of Henry Lake in Idaho, west and northwest of
the park, show that immense numbers of ani-
mals starved to death throughout this whole
region between January, 191 1, and the opening

THE END OF THE TRAIL 299

of spring. An informant wrote me during the
spring:

"The elk calf crop of last year has suffered a
loss of about eighty per cent. The health offi-
cers of Livingston declare that the waters of the
Yellowstone River have been contaminated by
the decaying bodies of dead elk, and the Mon-
tana Board of Health is making an investi-
gation."

In spite of this, previous to April first, 191 1,
permits had been granted to sheep men to graze
forty thousand sheep during the summer of
191 1 on the Gallatin National Forest Reserve.
Doubtless many additional licenses were later
issued.

It is unbelievable that a Christian nation
would permit, to say nothing of being responsi-
ble for, such a condition as exists. Humanity
cries out against this utterly heartless course.
It makes me heart-sick now to remember what
I saw in Jackson's Hole. Every one wants to
see the animals preserved if they can be pro-
vided for. No one wants to see them preserved,
however, through one season only to be starved
to death the next. If they cannot be provided
for, let us kill them in the name of mercy, and
be done with it once for all.

Whether the sheep that denude the ranges in

300 SADDLE AND CAMP

the Gallatin and Absaroka National Forest Re-
serves are or are not more valuable than the elk
does not enter into the question. If we are to
keep these elk which we have reared in Yellow-
stone National Park, we must feed them. I do
not believe the people of the United States want
the animals killed.

Hague and others have been working for sev-
eral years to have the government take steps to
exclude sheep from an ample range contiguous
to the park. On the fourth of March of the
present year Governor Norris of Montana
signed a bill creating what is to be known as
the Gallatin County Game Preserve, its special
object being to provide a range for the Yellow-
stone National Park elk moving northward
from the park. The Federal government will
of course exclude sheep from this preserve in
which Montana prohibits hunting. But it is a
vastly insufficient area, extending but four miles
northward from the park boundary and but
twenty miles in length. It is, however, a step
in the right direction, but it must be extended
considerably to be of any great value in pre-
venting wholesale starvation.

My horseback journey, begun on the Arizona
desert under the scorching sun of June, ended
at Emigrant, Montana. It was winter now, and

Photograph by S. N. Leek

Young Elk Too Weak to Drag Itself Across the Fence.

Antelope Living in Alfalfa Fields near Gardiner, Montana.

THE END OF THE TRAIL 301

the mountains lay white and cold under their
mantle of snow.

It was a real hardship to part from my faith-
ful horses. Button had served me as saddle or
pack pony over two thousand miles of desert
and mountain trails and Heart from the Cibicue
in Arizona. With no other companions on
long reaches of lonely trail and in even more
lonely camps, when I talked to them and they
seemed to understand, my imagination had im-
bued them with almost human instincts and
sympathies. They had been faithful friends
indeed.

Button, who had lavished his affections upon
Heart, after our parting from Shorty and Billy,
had elected himself Heart's protector whenever
he and the more passive Heart were thrown in
contact with other animals. At Emigrant I set
them free on a range with other horses, and
when I turned for a last look at them I beheld
Button, his ears lying back, the white of his
eyes gleaming, his mouth open, charging some
inquisitive horses that had attempted to ap-
proach Heart and striking viciously at them
with his fore feet. Heart, the personification of
patience, his ears pricked forward, stood in the
background.

This was not a hunting trip. Its chief ob-

302 SADDLE AND CAMP

ject was to gather information relative to some
species of our big game animals, the ranges
which they occupy, the ranges which they
should occupy, and the condition of those ani-
mals remaining, with the hope that such infor-
mation might tend to influence better preserva-
tion.

While I carried arms and had ample oppor-
tunities to kill, I fired but two shots during the
whole length of my journey.

THE END

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